I hope all arrogant superiors, coercers, abusers, disgusting local sheriffs, monsters in positions of power who can act abominably and get away with it unscathed, are shaking in their boots now, telling themselves their victims would rather stay silent than scream for help.

Zoran Kesic

I sometimes have this dream that I’d killed a person a long time ago. I’d killed someone in secret, no one knows of this murder, I didn’t even know about it until recently. I managed to repress this awful thing so deep, I forgot about it; I continued to live the life of an ordinary man, a man who never killed anyone. Until now, when in my dream I remembered ‘wait a second, I killed that guy that one time’.

This realization is accompanied by guilt and fear. I don’t know what I’m most afraid of – that I will forever be conscious I’d committed a crime, or that someone might discover I am a murderer. Then I wake up and am somehow pleased I haven’t killed anyone. For now.

I can continue living a life of mundane problems, questionings, and seasonal guilts like my current ‘I’ve gained so much weight, how will I face the TV camera and my viewers’.  I do wonder, especially these days, what it’s like for those who reminded themselves (in a dream or in waking hours) that they’d once gravely sinned.

How do all those ‘Uncles’ wake up, having dreamt they abused and raped, and they have a whole day of consciousness ahead of them – knowing that it wasn’t ‘just a dream’.

What if this morning’s paper has my picture in it? He thinks to himself.
What if ‘my one’ speaks up after Milena and Iva?

What if the police break into my apartment while I’m having breakfast?

Have a good breakfast, lunch, and any future meals.
And sleep well if you can.

Live in fear, you bastards!

Because the closets you’ve hidden your skeletons in can no longer close; they’ve started to pour out, and everyone will see what you’ve done.

What a joyful day this will be for justice, what a symphony of playful and almost forgotten about skeletons.

Except it won’t be.

There is nothing joyful about it, especially for the victims.

I happen to know one. I wrote to her, said she shouldn’t have a smidgeon of doubt about whether she should have spoken up, revealed, shouted. And I told her that after this, everyone will respect and admire them even more.

Because I can also imagine the scenario in which the victim represses it.

Telling herself that it wasn’t actually that bad, justifying it, preoccupied with something else – she finds joy, falls in love, fights other demons, time passes, she forgets.

So, it is admirable and respectable to dig it back up.

Have us collectively know the deepest, most guarded secret.

Have us judge, evaluate, advise, expect more details, send a supportive message…

Or maybe wonder ‘why was she silent’, doubt, ridicule, humiliate…

Sharing and offering the experience to all of us is worth admiration and respect.
And it is our responsibility to empower the victims.

The fact that we haven’t killed anyone, like me, doesn’t make us good citizens, but maybe citizens who (luckily) didn’t have a hard, sharp weapon or an explosive device on hand in any given moment.

We become good citizens when we unite and offer unconditional support to the brave whistleblowers.

Not only in this current ‘acting’ case.

I hope all arrogant superiors, coercers, abusers, disgusting local sheriffs, monsters in positions of power who can act abominably and get away with it unscathed are shaking in their boots now, telling themselves the victims would rather stay silent than scream for help.

How many people will go to sleep tonight and dream that someone once murdered them?

No one knows of this murder, and even they didn’t know until recently, because they’d repressed it.

They live the lives of ordinary people, and they’d once been murdered.

Well, good morning to you people!
If you have something you would like to tell us, we will happily listen to you and shout by your side.

And know that shame, fear, and judgement have no place in your home.

They are busy with all the ‘Uncles’ who are scrambling these days, trying to padlock their old, crumbling, overflowing closets.