Imagine ten, twenty years in the future: you've moved out of the family home shared with your brother to a house next door. It has a garage that you never use, but that he leases from you to keep his car in it. There's a family of foxes that live inside that you weren't too sure about at the start, but you've since decided to live and let live, along with a couple of dogs that have been living there since back when Broseph was leasing it from the home's previous owner. You work a steady, if not always consistent job that pays for the many cats that live with you; they're a mix of patterns and breeds, though you notice they tend to cluster in opposite sides of the house: the cats on the east side meow differently from the cats on the west side, but they're all cats, and apart from a few squabbles here and there, they all generally get along.

Over the years, you've dabbled with boyfriends. Some are strangers from the west end, bright-eyed, promise you the moon, but never seem to be able to follow through—money's too tight, or they get weirdly stubborn, or they're just plain lazy, and you gradually burn out. Others are more like your brother's partner Sasha: they give you lavish gifts, but are strangely insistent that you'd be so much better off if you moved back in with Broseph—indeed, they suck up to him in a way that makes you think they're only dating you in order to get to him. You realize the gifts are merely buying your affection, and you soon break up. You end up see-sawing between these two groups—and you notice that every time you dump the Sashas for the west-end boys, your brother comes over with gifts of his own that leave you throwing up the next day and short of petty cash you swore you'd put in that cookie tin. You start to wonder if Broseph has a vested interest in these Sashas himself.

Your latest was a Sasha—let's call him Vinny—one you'd actually dated before, dumped, but he's won you back with the usual promises and showy gifts. You've been wanting to get some new toys for the cats; he says you should ask Broseph, but you know his money will come with strings attached, and besides, you have friends in the west end that have new selections you want to try out. The cats seem to prefer the west-end toys too, so he agrees, albeit reluctantly, and says he'll go and buy them. And then, right as you hand him the order for what you want, along with the cash for purchase, Vinny says actually he'll get them from Broseph after all. Well, the cats are furious to be double-crossed, and next thing you know they're tearing up the living room and Vinny's running out the door and over to Broseph's.

And that's when things get weird.

See, Broseph and his Sasha have been keeping dogs the way you've been keeping cats; they often wander into your yard, some even into the house, but they're generally well-behaved, and your cats wander into Broseph's yard too, and apart from the occasional squished tail or swat of the face they basically get along. But no sooner is Vinny off your step than some of Broseph's dogs—big, angry ones with spiked collars—rush into your yard. There's a fight outside: Broseph hollers at you that your damn cats are fighting with themselves, and over on the east side you can see some scraps close to his property—but you notice that amongst the cats, there are a lot of dogs fighting too, and the longer you watch, the more you notice it's less cats fighting other cats than cats fighting the angry dogs. And when you go to check on the garage, you find it's almost all dogs meowing and pretending to be cats, and the foxes have vanished. And the days go by and the fighting goes on, and cats from the west side join the cats in the east in fighting the dogs (and the cats fighting with the dogs are all barking like dogs and wearing dog collars), and Broseph keeps hollering at you to get your damn cats in line, but you notice he hasn't called off his dogs—to which he screams how dare you claim they're occupying the garage because the garage was always his, and they're just protecting their fellow canids—yet when you ask where are the foxes he tells you off that it doesn't matter, and besides, it was the damn foxes that were squatting in the first place.

And so the months go on with the cats fighting the dogs in the yard and the dogs squatting in the garage and there's still no sign of the foxes, and Broseph keeps hollering for you to sort them out but he never calls off his dogs, and besides they're not even his dogs, they're your own cats, stop trying to blame this all on him, and your latest west-end boyfriend is proving no help so soon enough you ditch him too.

But rather than another Sasha, you try your luck with someone new—let's call him David. He's funny and charming and has a sharp writing wit that he's used to skewer your previous boyfriends, west-ender and Sasha alike, and he says he's willing to talk to Broseph and stop this constant fighting in the yard. The cats absolutely love him, which is somewhat unexpected because he's actually from the east end, and used to live just north of Broseph's property, and he's more of a fox guy than cats or dogs. But a couple months later he seems to be falling into the same pattern as your west-end deadbeats, and Broseph's ignoring his calls and still refusing to call off the dogs (which he insists are actually your cats), and David tried to call an American friend for help but the guy has relapsed into alcoholism and demanded David send him some text messages from his ex's son before he'll pony up, plus the Yankee keeps saying your Broseph is strong and smart and he wishes he could be him, so you're not sure he'll actually help anyway.

And so another couple months pass, and while David's American friend finally sobers up, the cats are still fighting the dogs and Broseph hollers that you're a horrible owner letting your cats fight each other, even though he's still not calling off his dogs (which, as ever, he insists are actually your cats), and the dogs are still squatting in the garage and there's still no sign of the foxes. And just when you're starting to worry this is the new normal, Broseph starts making these long-winded tirades about how terrible it is that you built your house separate with parts form his (your house was already here), and how tragic it is you've convinced all your dogs they're cats (you are reasonably certain dogs don't meow), and how confused you must be pretending you and he are anything other than identical twins? (A glance in the mirror confirms you're not.) And you know he's made some sketchy claims before, but now he's got a megaphone and is belting this out into the street for everyone to hear, and you notice that more of his dogs—the big, angry ones with spiked collars—are now sitting in a line on the property border.

And then early one morning, the dogs rush into the yard—not just where they're already fighting, but across the north and even into the house. And they get within a few metres of David, and you recall how Vinny turned tail when the cats got mad, so you wait to see him bolt too. But he stands his ground, and the cats rally around him, and they drive the dog-salient out of the house and back into the yard. And David's American friend calls to say he can be by in five minutes to drive you out, but David says he doesn't need a ride, he needs chew-toys. And Broseph is absolutely furious, but he insists his dogs aren't fighting your cats, they're conducting "special play operations" in his backyard, and you should be grateful because he's chasing off the nasty foxhounds that are running rampant in your house—which makes no sense, because the only foxhounds you've seen are with the dogs squatting in the garage, and if you did have foxhounds, why on earth would they put up with a fox-fancier like David?

Meanwhile, David is giving a speech that yours is not a house of cats or dogs or foxes, but of all animals, and for the first time in months he shows real leadership, and even though the cats are drastically outnumbered, they fight the dogs to a standstill. And then your neighbours, seeing the commotion, start sending chew-toys to help distract the dogs, and though the fighting doesn't stop, you see some of Broseph's dogs turning around and fighting with your cats against their fellow dogs—and when you look at them closely you see they're barely a year old, and starved and bruised and scared, and were probably only even fighting your cats because Broseph would whip them otherwise.

And then eventually the dogs pull back—but not out of your yard, and not out of the garage. Instead of fighting the cats, Broseph and Sasha start hurling bricks and stones all across your property, smashing windows, crushing the flower bed, and tearing up the lawn. And David is begging the neighbours watching on the sidelines to help set up a net to catch the missiles, but many were reluctant just to send you chew-toys, and they're worried a net will be provocative to Broseph—and some are even saying it's your own fault for attacking his dogs in the first place, which patently makes no sense since it's the dogs that started it. And so the bricks and stones keep bombarding your yard and breaking your house, and some of them punch through the roof and start hitting the kittens sheltering in the west rooms, and half your neighbours are now regretting they didn't induct you into their community watch program when you'd asked several years ago, and the other half are pondering why not bringing you in didn't stop Broseph from going after you like he'd promised.

And as your neighbours are debating whether stopping Broseph and Sasha from barraging your house and wounding your kittens would only make things worse, he starts waving a petrol bomb and threatening to torch your house altogether if anyone else steps on your yard. So your neighbours keep sending chew-toys, and some even start sending dog-whistles that help scare off the especially vicious dogs, but nobody steps in to help (though some of their pets sneak past and put on spare cat collars to join the fight). And the bricks and stones keep flying and wounding your kittens, and now Broseph and Sasha are taking hoes and shovels and digging up your lawn, and you can't understand why because you thought he'd said he was "reclaiming" his "rightful yard" and instead seems hell-bent on destroying it.

And amidst all of this, your niece (because Broseph and Sasha consummated their marriage) is sending you letters expressing her sorrow that you're being held hostage by those vicious foxhounds, and she's praying that you'll be brought back home where you belong. And you reply that you're already home, and the foxhounds are Broseph's, and you know your brother is quick with the whip but you both need to stop this madness. But your niece only goes on that it's for your own good, that the nasty cats are bullying the puppies, and that once the "special play operations" conclude you'll be better off than you ever were before. And you want to laugh, but you're crying, because Broseph's pulling your hair so hard your scalp is bleeding, and Sasha's emptying out your fridge, even the bags marked for donation to the food bank. So you send photos of your kittens wounded by the bricks and stones so your niece will understand, but she says she doesn't believe you, that it's obviously the cats doing it to their own young to make the dogs look bad. And the more you try to convince her Broseph is destroying your home, the angrier your niece gets, and the nastier she replies: how dare you blame him, you ungrateful bastard! Don't you know who your family is?! Your west-end boyfriends have duped you into making up these stories about owning a house with wounded kittens: “you” don't exist, you've never existed, you're a fragment of Broseph trapped in self-delusion, and you deserve everything that's happened, because if you just sat down and shut up and did everything that Broseph said, he wouldn't need to save you from yourself.

And the cats and dogs are still fighting, they're all scratched and bleeding, especially the dogs, and though David continues to inspire everyone, he looks exhausted too, and his witty writings feel like a lifetime away. And the house is shattered and the yard is a wreck, and bricks and stones keep raining down and wounding your kittens while your neighbours demure on stepping in, and a few idiots are even saying your niece is right and you're making all this up, while Broseph swings his petrol bomb with one hand as the other keeps slamming your face into the floor.

This is the plight of Ukraine.