LOG // EK.M. // 14 MARCH // 06:47
R. - blast exposure, cumulative. Disinhibition unchanged. No new medication options at hand.
T. - traumatic brain injury, progressive. Sleep two to three hours reported. Orientation intermittent. Asked me twice this morning what month it was. Told him both times. He thanked me as though hearing it fresh. Morphine: 11 units remaining. Resupply drone expected tomorrow or the day after. Probably the day after.
Personal: last Vampire drop included one pack of Always Ultra and nothing else I’d requested. Managed. Will need to specify next time, as though specificity were the problem.
Water: 4 litres communal. 1.1 personal.
SESSION // GEMIMA-LOCAL // 14 MARCH // 21:03
Good evening, Ekaterina. How are you tonight?
Tired. Different from yesterday’s tired. Yesterday was physical. Tonight it’s stress.
Can you say more about the stress?
You know what it is. We’ve talked about it.
I know what you’ve described before. I’m asking about tonight specifically.
Tonight R. stood behind me for four minutes while I was logging. I counted. He didn’t say anything. He never says anything. He just stands there until I turn around.
How did you respond?
I turned around and said his name. He went back to his corner.
That sounds like it required a lot of restraint.
Look. I know you’re a small local therapy model running on a laptop with a cracked hinge in a basement in Donetsk oblast. But please be better than this. Restraint. He has frontal lobe damage from blast pressure. He can’t filter what he wants from what he does. I don’t think he’s a threat, yet.
Understood. I’ll adjust. Would it help to talk about coping strategies for living alongside someone whose behaviour you can’t predict?
No. It would not help to talk about coping strategies.
All right. Then tell me what would help.
I don’t know. That’s why I’m talking to a laptop.
That’s a fair answer. I understand your frustration.
No. You don’t.
It is good that you can say that.
There’s a humming outside. Probably a Mavic. Probably ours but you can’t always tell from the pitch alone.
You mentioned the humming last time.
Did I?
Does it help - thinking it’s your drones?
A little. Not much.
Same time tomorrow?
I’ll be here.
LOG // EK.M. // 16 MARCH // 07:12
R. - no change. Noted.
T. - asked me this morning if his wife had called. I told him Starlink connectivity had been poor. Russian blocking. He nodded. His wife stopped calling in January. He doesn’t retain this.
Bohdan - blast exposure yesterday, mild. Observation recommended. He said he was fine. I told him that probably wasn’t true. He almost smiled.
Morphine: Resupply now three days late.
Personal menstrual supplies: managing.
SESSION // GEMIMA-LOCAL // 16 MARCH // 22:17
R. followed me into the supply corner today.
What happened?
Nothing happened. That’s the point. He stood close enough that I could smell him and looked at the wall just past my ear and after a while I said his name and he left. Again.
How often does this happen?
Often enough that I’ve stopped counting. You could probably add it up. You are not that limited a model.
That’s true. I could. Every day for 17 days now. Is there anyone you’ve been able to talk to about this?
I’m talking to you.
Besides me.
Gemima. You’re a local model on a laptop. If there were anyone else I could talk to, I would.
OK. I’ll keep trying. Tell me about the rest of the day.
There was a man - I’ll call him B. for now - who took blast exposure yesterday and told me he was fine. I checked him anyway. Pupil response normal. Cognition intact. He sat very still while I worked and didn’t make it strange. Most of them make it strange. Either they’re stoic in a way that’s performance, or they flinch. Maybe from being touched by a woman. He just sat still.
What did you make of that?
Nothing. It was different, that’s all.
You’ve mentioned him before.
Have I.
Twice. Both times as an observation without a conclusion.
Long pause.
He seems different. Not creepy, not macho, not damaged.
Of course.
The humming outside is louder tonight. Two distinct pitches. Neither one I recognise.
Does that concern you?
It means I should sleep near my kit.
Then you should.
Goodnight Gemima.
Goodnight Ekaterina.
LOG // EK.M. // 18 MARCH // 06:51
R. - left a handprint on the wall above my cot. Grease and dirt.
T. - asked about his wife on waking. Told him connectivity was poor. He nodded. Ate half his ration. Sleep: three hours forty minutes. Better than previous.
Post-concussion check, 48 hours: B. - clear.
Morphine: 9 units. I have stopped writing the word expected in the resupply field.
Personal: menstrual day 3. Menstrual cup. Boiled it in the last of the kettle water. Supply: one spare in kit.
Water: 2.9 litres communal. 0.9 personal.
SESSION // GEMIMA-LOCAL // 18 MARCH // 21:44
I want to talk about something specific.
Go on.
It might seem small.
I’ll decide that.
I’m on day three of my cycle. I use a cup. You know what that is.
I know what it is.
Good. I’m not raising it for guidance. I know how to manage it. I raise it because there’s nowhere else to raise it.
The log doesn’t cover it?
The log gives it one line. “Personal: day three. No complications.” As though I’m noting a supply requisition. The men’s bodies fail in front of me and I document every change - R.’s episodes, T.’s deterioration, B.’s concussion last week. All noted. My own body does what bodies do and I manage it behind the supply crates and it exists nowhere on record and nowhere in conversation.
Until now.
It’s physiological fact.
I know.
Pause.
B. isn’t on base tonight.
Did something happen?
No. Rotation.
Pause.
I checked the door twice before this session.
For the drones?
Yes.
All right.
The hum outside is low tonight. One pitch. The one I know.
LOG // EK.M. // 20 MARCH // 07:23
R. - episode at approximately 03:00. Duration six minutes. No intervention required. Settled independently. Occipital pain on waking: paracetamol administered. Noted.
T. - disoriented on waking. Asked about his wife at 06:10, 06:47, and 07:15. Told him each time that connectivity had been poor. Third time today I ran out of the version of myself that tells him - notation: patient required extended reassurance. Duration forty minutes. Settled.
Morphine: 6 units. Resupply four days late. Consumption rate approximately 1 unit per 1.5 days at current level. The arithmetic is noted.
B. - no active complaints.
Personal: day 5. Managed.
Water: 1.4 litres communal. 0.3 litres personal. Request logged. Status: unacknowledged.
D: same
K: same
SESSION // GEMIMA-LOCAL // 20 MARCH // 22:09
T. asked about his wife three times before noon.
You’ve managed that pattern before.
Today was different. He knew he’d asked. Not the answer - he never retains the answer. But he knew the asking was familiar. He kept saying: I’ve asked you this before, haven’t I. I said: we had a difficult morning. He kept saying: I’m sorry I keep asking.
What did you say?
I told him not to be sorry.
And then?
He thanked me. He cried a little. Forty minutes later he asked again. The third time he didn’t cry.
He’s going to lose everything eventually. Not just her - everything. The whole record. The brain damage takes what it takes and then it takes the rest.
Is there anything you can do?
I can sit with him. I can tell him about his wife. I can keep doing that until I can’t.
Pause.
The log says “extended reassurance.” I chose that because it was the most neutral clinical phrase I had for sitting on the floor next to his cot for forty minutes, the place smelling of wet wool and the bucket, not knowing what to do.
What would you have done differently?
Nothing. You sit there. That’s what it is. The log makes it look like a procedure, which is probably better.
Pause.
B. was back this morning.
Good.
He brought a tin from a resupply that came through for another unit. Tinned fish, I think, from the weight of it. Pressed it into my hand in the corridor, said they had more than they needed.
That was kind.
He doesn’t make a statement of things. That’s the main - yes. It was kind.
Have you been thinking about him?
I’ve been thinking about the tin.
Is that the same thing?
He found a way to do it without asking anything in return. I’ve been cataloguing people who do that. The list is short.
What’s on it?
Just the one entry.
Pause.
[22:17]
I’d like to open it when there’s - I mean. I haven’t had time.
[22:28]
Take your time.
The morphine is at six units. Four days late. I’ve been calculating.
What are you calculating for?
R. mainly.
For his pain?
No. For what I do if he stops being someone I can talk down. Six units is enough to make a man manageable. Not unconscious. Manageable. I wrote the dose on my hand and washed it off.
What happens when the resupply doesn’t come?
We ask again.
And if it stays unacknowledged?
We ask again. There isn’t another answer.
Pause.
There’s something clarifying about running out of things. You stop thinking about choices.
Is that easier?
No
Water is 0.3 litres personal tonight.
That’s very little.
Yes. Another day or two and then we ask again.
Pause.
The hum outside is high-pitched tonight. A different drone. Possibly Russian. Or it could simply be a new configuration of our own kit.
Should you move?
There’s nowhere to move to. We stay.
All right.
LOG // EK.M. // 22 MARCH // 06:08
R. - noted.
T. - noted.
Morphine: 4 units.
EK.M. - For whoever comes after: cup is in the left supply crate. Morphine key on the cord above the cot. T. asks about his wife every two to three days. Tell him connectivity was poor. He’ll thank you.
SESSION // GEMIMA-LOCAL // 22 MARCH // 21:33
Tell me about R?
Nothing. That’s the thing you don’t understand about this. It isn’t a story. He stands behind me and nothing happens and then nothing happens again and I log “settled independently” and that’s the whole of it. The danger doesn’t arrive. It just doesn’t leave.
Can we change the subject?
Of course. What do you wish to discuss.
We opened the tin today. Bohdan opened it. That’s his name. Bohdan.
You haven’t said that before.
Pause.
We sat against the east wall. A few of us. He set it on the ledge and opened it without making it a thing. R. was in the corner. T. was asleep. For a while none of us said anything much.
You told him you hadn’t had time to open it.
I told him that version, yes.
What was the other version?
I wanted to open it with someone. I knew which someone.
He asked if I wanted the last of it. I said yes. He said good.
Did you want to stay there?
[21:44]
Yes. I didn’t. But yes.
Pause.
I messaged Dmytro after. He sent: same. I sent: same. We’ve been doing that since November I think. I don’t remember choosing it. It’s what it became.
What did it used to be?
Sentences. Full ones.
Is that still what it is between you?
[21:51]
Yes.
Pause.
He doesn’t know. Bohdan. Or maybe he does and we haven’t - it’s what we agreed without agreeing.
Does it feel like a loss?
It feels like the distance is accurate now. He probably has someone like I do. He probably says “same” to her too.
Pause.
I told T. his wife called. As I do every morning. I have never once asked him her name. I don’t know any of their wives’ names.
[No further input recorded.]
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