I just can't believe it!

As the footage rolled out on the television screen, my hands shot up to my eyes instinctively to cover them.

I just couldn't watch what my eyes were about to tell my brain.

Not again.

For I had seen the same pictures earlier. They just popped up in the newscast. And because I didn't know, then, what was coming, I had watched.

They showed a dead person being carried away from a hospital site that had been bombed by Russian artillery. Or by a tank. Did that detail matter? Especially to the dead?

Next came a pregnant woman in labor, oozing blood, being wheeled away from the bombed building. As she was being carted along, she tried to cover herself. For private parts of her body were being exposed as a result of the hurry with which her rescuers were carrying her to safety.

My mind wondered, will she survive? Will her baby live?

These thoughts were driven away by the next bit of footage. It showed a table whose top was soaked red in blood. There was nobody lying on the table. But
its condition told a horrific story. How many people had lain on it? Would they have stayed alive after losing so much blood?

Bad picture after the bad picture had appeared on the screen. Walls gutted by shellfire. Cars burnt to cinders, with only their skeletons left. Or parts of the skeletons that had not fully melted.

And then the fleeing humans, little babies wrapped up in coats, with heads and ears covered by fur hats. Feeble old women with eyes that failed to register anything at all just walking, walking, walking. Where were they going? They didn't seem to know.

So, this was war?

Did Mr Vladimir Putin know that this was what was going to put on Tik Tok and Youtube for the whole world to see when he decided to invade Ukraine?

Putin wanted to tell Ukraine that Russia was its master. But did he realize that the Russian “master” was going to define itself to the world as a brute?

What would a destroyed Ukraine be able to offer to Russia, if Russia became its “master”?

On his part, did President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine know that such inhuman suffering was what he was conjuring for his people when he decided to taunt Russia by flirting with a membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation?

Did he imagine it was just going to be the enactment of another film script, in which he would be the “hero”, beating the hell out of an oversize villain (Putin) and winning plaudits from the world?

The TV news footage showed that Reality had met Fiction that had been translated into Actuality: a totally incomprehensible Scenario.

Only that to themselves, the woman on the bed was trying to bring out into the world, a real baby made of flesh and blood; those whose blood had stained the hospital table had not bled “film blood” but had felt enormous pain as their blood spurted out of their skin and veins. And the old woman to whom anywhere was nowhere had once seen someone like herself in a war film shot when she was very young. A war film that showed scenes from Auschwitz. Or Dachau. Or Buchenwald.

Oh humankind: you spent a whole century toying with a “balance of terror” that would end war; did not scruple to name the system as one of “mutually assured destruction” (MAD)! Mad?

And in 2022, you are acting really “mad”?

Of what use will Ukraine be to Russia, if Russia occupies Ukrainian lands and buildings, but Ukrainians hate Russians so much they want to eat Russians alive?

And of what use will Ukraine be to NATO, if Ukraine's membership ignites a nuclear fireball?

Oh Russia, what happened to “mir-i- druzhba”? [peace and friendship – a Soviet post-2nd World War slogan?]

Oh NATO, what happened to the slogan that used to end Voice of America broadcasts to countries behind the 'Iron Curtain': “For freedom and peace”?

These were mere words transmitted to fool the world, were they?

Ai! Humankind! How can I explain your nonsense to my ten-year-old grandson?

Do I say, 'Kwame, the Ukrainians wanted to protect themselves from their neighbours, the Russians? So they wanted to join a military alliance called NATO. But the Russians complained that 'NATO' was formed to attack them. So if Ukraine joined NATO, it would mean that Ukraine intended to attack Russia. Russia couldn't allow that. And so Russia has been bombing Ukrainian cities?'

Kwame asks: “So that's why the Russians attacked the Ukrainians?”'

“Yes.”

“You mean thousands of Russians and Ukrainians are dying, just because each of their governments suspects that the other intends to attack it?”

“Yes!”

“But it's like me fighting with another boy who says his bicycle is faster than mine! If I do not challenge him to a race, he hasn't actually done anything to me, has he? Even if he challenges me, I can refuse?'

“Yes – You don't need to do what anyone else expects you to do! Especially if it can get people killed!”

“Grandpa, how old is Russia's President Putin?”

“He's 69!”

“And how old is Ukraine's President Zelensky?”

“He's 44!”

“Grandpa, aren't some old people dumb? Why should innocent people die because something inside one person's head is different from what is in the head of another person? If someone thinks he can ride a bicycle faster than me, I don't have to prove that mine is faster, by all means?”

“No, you don't!”

“Grandpa, do you think I shall be that dumb when I am 69”?

“Kwame, I don't know! By the time you are 69, I shall be long dead!”

“What about when I reach age 44”?

“I am sorry but I shall be dead, then, too!!”

“Oh! Hmm! I ask because I would like to prove when I reach those people's age, that I can still think like a ten-year-old boy, and not kill innocent people just because of what I think someone else thinks – when I can't go inside his head to make sure!”