Confessions of a Mask

Dear Ismael and Ophelia,

After a period of raw, tearing experiences, I wrote this letter - not to send, but to rescue my thoughts from the geopolitical chaos.

It is raw, unfiltered.

Perhaps you will find something in it.

Dear Europe,

I never thought I would write you a letter. But I am not just writing to you. Your presence has triggered something in me. Since seeing you falter, I have been plagued by dreams-extremely violent dreams, infused with destruction. Dreams that make my nerves dance on the edge of my existence. Dreams that paralyse my body and darken my soul.

Last night, for instance, I dreamt about an orphaned child. Her mother had perished in the war. After her death, the child was handed over to a man-a man possessed of a gruesome, almost artistic talent for torture. He used nails, chairs and iron wire to erase every trace of joy from her memory. He forced her to drink, so much so that you couldn't tell whether she was alive or already dead. She was alone, utterly defenceless, at the mercy of the devil's will.

The most chilling thing about my dream was the discovery that I was not just a spectator. At first I thought I was a passive, abstract, outsider. But then I understood the terrible causality between my actions and her suffering. Every time I closed my eyes-pure instinctive fear of not having to see-her pain intensified. Averting my gaze meant intensifying her torture. My cowardice became her wounds. My eyes were the design of her torment. It was all my fault.

I hoped I could go blind, thought darkness could reverse everything. I wanted to destroy my eyes, hoped their wounds could seal hers. But that didn't happen. On the contrary, I fell. I fell into unending darkness, with my eyes wide open. I became lost in a fear that pierced my young heart like a razor-sharp dagger.

When I wake up from these demonic, hyper-realistic dreams, I tremble with an intensity my body cannot handle. I gasp for air as if it were opium, trying to find myself again, my breath, my flesh. For minutes, there is nothing but chaos. Then the panic ebbs away, and thinking returns. And in that moment, I feel like an overly sensitive mind, screaming in a deaf world. My wings crash against the walls of absurdity, become black as night and encompass... nothing.

Why is there a panic so blind, a fear that seems to spring from the depths of hell? These questions flash through my mind like bullets leaving a barrel-unstoppable, deadly. And suddenly, in the most unexpected moment, I feel a tear fall.

Because it was not a nightmare.

Children are dying in Gaza, while Europe begrudgingly closes its eyes. My existential angst was not just a night shadow, but a razor-sharp mirror of geopolitical reality. The world is becoming a powerful stranger. And this realisation-it cut deeper than anything else. My European mask broke. This nightmare was a confession of the mask; my illusions fell like shards of glass from my skin.

This tear, the cruellest wound of all, showed me who I really was. I was a wounded European being, hiding from the naked terror of the world.

But now I am awake.

I stand up. My body moves automatically before my mind understands. I rush to the bus, breathing heavily, walking-I walk, I run-as if I can escape the images that haunt me. The city flickers and yawns around me. Advertising signs scream for attention, meaningless and hollow. My mind begins to imitate the vagaries of the Trump world.

Rolling tanks. Shooting snipers. Jet fighters through the sky.

Chaotic. Unpredictable.

Like an epileptic seizure of time itself.

I push myself into the bus, crashing into a seat, exhausted and panting.

 Across from me sits an old Russian man. His eyes are deep, imbued with a seriousness that hits me before he has even said a word. He looks at me, and then, in a voice that sounds as heavy as it is determined:

‘I believe war is coming, just as I believe in God.’

His words linger in the air, slowly pulling themselves into my consciousness like a splinter in the flesh. He does not wait for a response.

‘The West is too secular to understand this,’ he continues. ‘My view is orthodox and does not lie.’

I feel how the world tightens around his voice. The wrinkles on his face are etched like a map of the past, his eyes piercing through time.

I step off the bus. My feet touch the ground, but my mind floats above it, caught between his words and the chilly banality of the city. Advertising signs scream for attention, neon lights flicker like frantic stars. My head buzzes: What if it all explodes here?

At university, I find temporary peace-a peace that is sterile, almost suspicious. Here the confession of the European mask is smothered in academic vacuum. War is just a debate, an intellectual exercise without the smell of burnt bodies, without the echo of sirens, without the concrete, black hands of death.

But the Russian man's words cut through my consciousness like X-rays. My nightmare of the orphan child continues to reverberate, like an ignition in my mind. Secretly, I hope that my blind panic-my nightmare-beats like a shockwave through this auditorium. That the university wakes up. That my lonely tear will be recognised in the eyes of others.

And then I suddenly realise:

Isn't inner madness the only logical response to this geopolitical order?

Isn't the Confession of the European Mask just... madness itself?

But I refuse to disappear into this madness.

My eyes have seen-and those who see once can never pretend to be blind again.

And neither can you, Europe.

The time for looking away is over. The mask must come off.

No more veil, no varnish, no illusion.

 Your face is fused with the lie, like an unborn child in the womb-warm, safe, but blind.

 But childbirth is near. You must give birth to yourself.

 Scream. Burst. Breathe.

 Breaking with the old. Breaking with cowardice.

Breaking, to be at last.

And yes, it will hurt.

 A journey right through the heart of darkness-

 Not only past the wounds of the other,

 but to the depth of your own wound.

For those who truly meet themselves,

 discovers that the suffering of the other is also his own flesh.

But don't be afraid, Europe.

 Your face exists. You are.

 You are not a shadow. Not a doll from a dead past.

 You are a being. You are a will.

And I reach out my hand to you.

 Let us walk through this darkness-

 not as puppets.

 No longer submissive.

 No longer a tool in the hands of others.

But as something new.

 As a child.

I, a young European, tear off my mask.

 My fear becomes strength. My panic becomes direction.

 My nightmare becomes a weapon.

 For the night may seem endless-

 but even the deepest darkness has a breaking point:

 The moment when light remembers it exists.

Europe, don't let the child die in war.

Let it no longer wear masks.

Let it have a face.

Take off the mask.

And if they can see your true face-

 if you need me-

 Call me.

 For I am here.

And I am awake.

Ismael and Ophelia, I leave these words with you,

May these words not be an end,

But a beginning.

With love,

Coma