The same song has been playing in my headphones for the last hour: In and Out Love by Evgeny Khmara (Piano solo). I feel like the aura that I've found so far inside this hall that has more than four walls suddenly changes color and shape.

When you are filled with love and peace, sometimes the wind of that excitement brings you all the human misfortunes and confronts them you. This must be proof of how a few notes I found in the calm atmosphere of the piece took my contemplation to the peak. With the tone of the song, the energy balls in the air start to change color one by one, and as they are blown back and forth in the room, they start to bring the dust scatter to me for me to breathe. As I breathe, Khmara presses the keys, each note seems to create its own universe. I blend the universe of each note with my breath. It doesn't seem to end; it has taken me right to the center.

I remember dinners accompanied by warm winds in my childhood. When my mind hadn't yet been hacked...when the world was chocolate, swimming, and magic…when I could see the sun in every season and find magical universes in the shape of every falling snowflake…when I could savor every meal I ate and every bite I swallowed…

When even the sounds of birds landing on tree branches were more natural... When they had not surrounded me with poisonous bars when they had not washed my brain with their fake history, when they had not planted distorted, crippled seeds in my mind...

I remember because I am inside.

While innocents are being slaughtered, wronged, silenced, ignored in Gaza, Ukraine, Africa, and many other places in the world… I can’t stand to see people whose lives are being destroyed. I don’t want to stand by and watch animals that can’t even tell us their troubles being slaughtered. I can’t stand to hear trees being burned to death as flames surround them, their screams crushing even the crust of the earth.

I don't want to go back to where we are addicted to dopamine, where we waste serotonin, where we crumple up the morals that will bring us back to our roots and throw them away. Every time Khmara comes to an end, I start over and over again without letting it finish.

Because I want to stay inside.

All my life, I have been surrounded by schizophrenia patients, restless people suffering from Othello syndrome, people who have become slaves to inferiority complexes, people with high egos, people with borderline personality disorder who are also on the verge of acute bipolar disorder, people who have mental breakdowns as if they were caught in a heavy rain and who have not been able to complete their personalities and who make both themselves and their surroundings uneasy… All of these are outside. They are in the house next door, upstairs, downstairs, across the street, on the back shelf in the supermarket, on the phone, on barbecue nights with family or friends...

Because if there is human being, there is a disease there. Even if you are drowning in peace down to your cells, they can come and find you. There are many of them. And they are increasing. You are the minority. They are the majority.

Stay inside. Stay there as long as Khmara's magic fingers continue to press. You're inside, just feel.

Here we go again. Close your eyes.

You are a Siren. You have been trying to hold on since they took your crystal clear waters from you. They poured the dirties from their hearts into your water. They took your family, your friends, your future children from you. Your food sources are running out. Your oxygen is running low. You could slip out of your shell and join them, but you don't. Because you are inside. Listen, the musical notes I send you are starting to mix with the waves. They will soon reach the uncharted depths of the ocean. Hold on a little longer. They want to make you leave your home. Hold on a little longer. Go on, dive into the depths, keep your eyes closed. Feel how the notes rush to you. In the silent depths of the ocean, they resound for you.

Do not worry, no one else can hear the song because only you are inside.

They are outside.

***

I would like to thank Evgeny Khmara, the owner of the performance who inspired me to write this article. Your magical notes continue to echo in the hearts of kind-hearted people and the heart of the ocean.

Because they are inside.

I S T I K B A L U K D E C B A N N E R H A B E R A R A S İ