I made eyes at a pair of young guys drinking beer by the entrance to the flat and offered them a wardrobe and armchair on condition they carried it down from the fifth floor. They agreed. I don’t think they needed the furniture, they just wanted to find out where I lived. It was a fair exchange.

By the evening, the flat was empty, except for the kitchen cabinets, a bed, the old television unit stuffed with papers, a coat stand in the hallway and the mattress and chair in Dad’s room. There was also the bike he rode to work to save on fares. And Grandma’s smell. Yes, the smell endured. When it was all done, I swept and mopped the floor and cooked. Dad gave himself his injection and slumped in front of the TV until midnight, at times rubbing his aching back. I was ready to leave.

“Evochka,” he called from his room. That bad habit of catching me on the threshold.

“What Dad?” I needed a rest.

“Evochka, it looks serious this time,” he shouted again.

I walked across the freshly washed floor in my shoes. He lay on his bed, remote in hand, staring listlessly at the screen. I started watching too. We hadn’t heard the news all day. A million-strong crowd thronged the Maidan in central Kyiv. At the gates of the presidential administration building, angry teenagers fired pepper spray, threw stones and snapped chains at four rows of Interior Ministry troops not much older than themselves. Our future president—who could have thought it then—arrived on a tractor and was dragged off and chased away. That was when the ugliness began. The higher-ups hadn’t given the young policemen any clubs or shields. A cobblestone hurled by someone in the mob hurled by someone in the mob crashed at their feet. The front row retreated and another moved forward to take its place. On it went for two hours as both sides grew ever more feral. Then the higher-ups unleashed the war dogs: the Berkut riot forces surged forward, sweeping away everything in their path, swinging their truncheons at young boys, women, old people, medics, and journalists. They were massive, rough, and had no mercy.

That’s when Russian television started calling Ukrainians fascists.

The revolution had begun.

Dad got to work the next day. He called me at six in the morning and asked me to fetch him a set of alcohol marker pens.

“Alcohol?”

“Yes, definitely the alcohol ones. I like the way they smell. And hurry.”

“Dad, it’s six, where am I supposed to get markers?”

“You should have bought them earlier,” he said, raising his voice.

“Dad, are you drunk again? Ok, I’ll get the markers, but just eat something, please. You need a green one? Or a blue one? Or a stripey one?”

The wretch. And I did get them of course. I woke up my dormitory neighbours and got them to give me black and red markers. He snatched them from my hand at the front door and shuffled off to his room and locked the door. I shrugged and went to make breakfast. I didn’t have a job yet, so I could do what I pleased.