by Gleb Georgevich Gerasimov, Slavyangrad (edited by Algora)

Many people like to say that they do not fear death, especially online. Many also mock death, again especially online. I do not quite understand the nature of what it takes to numb oneself to it, or to dehumanize someone simply because you’re viewing it with a glass barrier between you and them. But I have seen enough of these comments now to try and gather my thoughts on it and share this.

Death is pure terror.

The overwhelming majority of commentary on human behavior under life and death situations, combat stress, adrenal response, acute combat stress syndrome, and especially mockery of the dead, including the enemy, likely comes from folk who have never experienced a moment in which they truly believe they are about to die.

It doesn’t matter if it takes place in a fraction of a second in which one simply realizes that he is about to die on the spot, or takes place in the hospital where you know you’re dying and nothing can be done, or the interim period between these two.

The vast majority of human beings are not ready to die. We remain in denial to our final moments, even as our hearts and livers begin to fail, even as a matrix of prescribed medication keeps us alive. Then there comes a moment. The heart finally gives out and one wakes up in the hospital with a tube down the throat.

• You’d want to ask so many questions – “what happened, am I ok, am I about to die, can I talk to my family?”
• You’d want to tell them that you love them, but you cannot.
• You’d want to apologize for every wrong you made to them, but you cannot.
• You’d want to give them some final wise words to carry on after you’re gone, but you cannot.

You cannot speak. People are talking at you, perhaps your family is in the very room, but you are too weak to lift an arm or communicate more than perhaps a nod. You’re thirsty, extremely thirsty, but cannot ask for water. Your throat hurts. You are about to go away, about to disappear, and everything you ever were and ever could have been is about to vanish into the ether, and all the things you wish you could have left behind will be lost.

A man is shot. In that moment he likely feels no pain whatsoever, the adrenaline dulls it. But his body is no longer working as it should. He felt the “slap” of the round go in, but can’t quite tell where. He is unsure if it punctured his chest or stomach, and the fear comes that it may have been a vital organ. There is blood, but he is unsure if it’s arterial. He wants to stand, but finds that every time he gathers his legs under him he simply falls over again.

He knows that he is bleeding out. He cannot tourniquet it, he cannot call his wife, he cannot even thank his comrades and wish them well. He only has time to realize that he’s about to be dead, slur out, “I’m wounded, help”, and then go still – though still conscious, but unable to move his mouth.

A man is blown over by a shell. The pain is dulled, but he cannot stand. He does not know where he has been injured. He tries to do as trained and hooks his fingers and rakes them across his chest to look for blood. There is no hand present to do so. He tries to speak; his mouth will not move, and he reaches to assess with his other hand – there is no other hand either. He may not know it, but there is no jaw.

A man takes a grenade strike from a drone while traversing a river, and he is now underwater. He has already inhaled water from the shock and trauma when struck, he’s already coughing and gasping while underwater and inhaling more liquid as he does. His head is just centimeters below the surface, he need only sit up – but his legs do not work.

His arms instinctively thrash out for help, some part of his fading consciousness hoping on instinct that someone will be there to grab his hand and lift him out. No one does.

A man falls off an APC struck by fire. He strikes the back of his head and either loses consciousness or is rendered immobile. A man whom he knew by name sees him just as the APC is reversing in position, reaches out to try and grab him and drag him out of the way, too late, and the APC runs him over and crushes him.

A civilian driving in town feels a hammer-force blow to his head, his ears are deafened, there is a ringing. He opens his car door, thinking perhaps he was in an accident, only to fall out the door. He tries to stand, falls over again.

When he looks down, he sees that his legs are no longer there. He crawls his way to the sidewalk, takes a seat, and in that moment has no comprehension of what happened. He can only see that his legs are not there. He had been going to the store, and then to visit someone he knew. That someone he was going to visit will never know what he was thinking when he died, or what he could have hoped to say to them. He himself had to realize that his legs had been torn off, then understand that he was going to die, and in those very few seconds before losing consciousness, thought over everything he wished he could have said before to those he loved and every wasted moment that he did not.

A part of him wondered how his family would afford the rent in that moment.

Death is the inability to speak. Death is the inability to make up for past mistakes. Death is a flailing, desperate fear in which you realize that no matter how hard the spasm, no matter how hard your muscles work, no matter how loudly you scream, or how softly the whimper comes from your throat when you try to scream, that it is all about to end and there is nothing you can do to stop it.

It is pain, it is terror, it is undignified; it is the fear of knowing what is about to come next and fear of that coming pain.

There is a sound I still hear sometimes in my bad dreams. It is a very particular sound, one I cannot quite properly describe or explain – but when wounded men scream, there is sometimes a very particular tone to their voice. If you have not heard it before, you cannot imagine it, and I cannot comprehend how anyone hearing it could proceed to execute such a voice – and yet, men do.

Men in this state, already shot and wounded and down, scream for help, for mercy; and begging, they cry “Stop!”

As they are being shot to death, in their final panicked moments, they are not trying to communicate “Please don’t kill me” but instead are trying to communicate, “Please, stop killing me.”

Now…

Imagine all that from the mind of a child. A child who is used to, when hurt, crying for an adult and Mom and Dad will be there instantly to make it stop hurting.

Only this time, Mom and Dad don’t come – because Dad’s face has been torn off and he is trying to comprehend through the pain why he cannot see or speak, and the nine-year-old girl lying in a street in the city of Donetsk cannot process that she has been torn apart at the pelvic girdle, for she has no concept of anatomy, death, or terror – and whatever her father’s final thoughts may have been I do not know, but that the girl’s final thoughts were cries for “Mommy, Daddy,” I am certain.

I saw the footage of this girl’s mother, almost driven mad, screaming that her daughter is here and her daughter’s legs are there.

One can harden one’s heart and steel himself to such, in war. But I will say this – it ain’t funny, and it ain’t entertainment, and anyone who finds it such should check their own headspace.