Queen of Naïve
I had nine years before I learned of humanity's staggering power to hurt and destroy.
I was in fourth grade when my mom picked me up from school and told me to pray that my father had made it out of the Pentagon alive. After we spent three endless hours pacing next to the telephone and staring at the television as it broadcast the Twin Towers falling over and over again, our prayers were granted.
I closed my eyes that night only to see planes crashing into towers and people jumping from windows.
Eleven years later, as a college junior, I spent a semester in Prague. My first week there, I met a tall Serbian boy with a guitar who loved beer just as much as he loved the Beatles. Misha and I gallivanted through the cobblestoned streets, exploring music shops and absintheries. We spent late nights in the park singing and exchanging stories. In three short weeks, we became best friends.
I was enamored of the shiny newness his perspective had to offer, and I thought he felt the same. His eyes widened every time I started a conversation with someone on a bus or a train, or with a Roma woman panhandling in the street, and I felt emboldened by his admiration.
For three weeks, we felt as though the pulse of the city was in our footsteps echoing under the Charles Bridge. We became the reason Prague existed at all.
As fast as it formed, our closeness disintegrated when bombs exploded during the 2013 Boston Marathon.
“Only three people died. Do you know how many people die in my country every day?” he said, after I told him how scared I was for my country and my family.
We spat verbal daggers at each other for an hour. I questioned his sanity, and humanity, while he crowned me Queen of the Naïve. I was distraught over his lack of empathy. He was annoyed that I wouldn't acknowledge his reality, that he didn't have nine years before he learned what terror meant, that not everyone had the illusion of safety I'd enjoyed for at least a little while.
Misha's childhood was littered with bombs and gunfire. The Yugoslav Wars raged from 1991 to 1999 while Misha grew up in a bunker waiting for peace. When it didn't come, his family sent him to Ireland, where he learned of the casualties in his country from afar. Like me. But not like me.
Misha saw my American life as a cakewalk. September 11, 2001, to him, was that one time when Americans were actually scared. That it happened again, albeit on a smaller scale in Boston, felt fitting to him. Maybe now American children would grow up with half the knowledge he had.
Misha's eyes weren't wide with admiration, but with judgment. When I reached out to strangers in my new world—his world—he saw a foolish American who was out of touch with reality. My nine years of innocence allowed me to see strangers as people just like me. Misha had no time to learn that just because one small group can destroy so much, it doesn't mean the rest of humanity is hiding an ulterior motive behind the smiles they flash from across a train. His eyes were wide shut. We were worlds apart, and our friendship never recovered.
-by Jacqueline Susmann '14
Jacqueline Susmann holds a B.A. in creative writing. She was an intern with College Communications before graduating in May 2014 and now is the public information coordinator at USDA Rural Development in Vermont.
