Global Studies

A Stitch in Time

Amara sat at her desk, her fingers hesitating above the keyboard as the soft light of her laptop illuminated the quiet room. The blank email stared back at her, waiting for her to begin. She had started writing these messages to Alexei as a way to make sense of everything that had happened, a way to express the feelings she couldn't say out loud.

She sighed deeply, her chest tightening as memories of the summer flooded her mind. She could still see him—standing next to her during their presentation, his voice steady and sure, the tension between them palpable but unspoken. The nights they spent working together, and the quiet moments they shared, flickered through her thoughts like a movie she couldn't turn off.

Hey, Alexei... she began typing, her fingers moving slowly. I've been thinking a lot about our time at Winthrop. About everything we went through. I don't know if you'll ever read this, but I need to write it down, even just for myself.

She paused, staring at the words on the screen, and felt a familiar ache in her chest. She could almost hear his voice in her mind, the way he had talked about his family, his hopes, his fears.

I miss our conversations—the good and the bad. I know things were complicated between us, but... it meant something to me. You mean something to me.

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure how much to say. The emails had become a way to release the emotions she hadn't been able to confront. But as she wrote, each word felt heavier, infused with the intensity of everything she hadn't had the chance to tell him.

With a sigh, she continued typing, her heart in every word.

...

Amidst the chaos in Ukraine, Alexei found moments of solace reading Amara's emails. Her words were a lifeline, pulling him away from the destruction that had become his daily reality. He often read them in the early hours of the morning, when the world outside was eerily quiet, the distant sounds of shelling a constant reminder of the fragility of peace.

Sitting in the dimly lit basement of their home that served as a shelter, Alexei scrolled through her latest message, a small smile tugging at his lips. It felt like she was with him, even though they were worlds apart. When he had the time, he wrote back, his emails filled with stories and snapshots of life in a war-torn country.

"Amara," he began, his fingers tapping slowly at the keys. "It's strange how quickly war becomes part of your routine. There's still chaos, but we've learned to live around it. The streets here used to be filled with life—kids running around, people chatting outside their homes—but now? It's different. Everyone moves quickly, quietly. You hear the shelling in the distance, but it's almost like background noise now."

He paused, listening to the muffled sounds outside, before continuing.

"We've built routines around it—helping where we can, moving between shelters, checking in on each other. It's not the Ukraine I remember, but it's still home."

Alexei's words painted a vivid picture for Amara. He described how the bustling streets of Kharkiv had been replaced by hurried whispers and fearful glances. There was an odd calmness in the way he spoke about it all, as if the chaos had become an unwelcome but accepted part of life.

"I miss the way things were before," he admitted in one of his messages. "But we've learned to adapt. We have to."

As he typed, Alexei felt a brief sense of normalcy return, as if sharing these moments with Amara could bridge the distance between their worlds.

One evening, as Alexei sat in the dimly lit kitchen of his uncle's house, the hum of the kettle on the stove filled the silence. He stared at the chipped mug in front of him, lost in thought. Viktor, his other uncle, had joined the fight weeks ago, but the weight of that decision hadn't faded. If anything, it grew heavier with each passing day.