Nil: The Lost Brother

The Lost Brother

Why did Hughes Die?

In recent days, I came across a news story that everyone has somehow encountered. It was about a middle-aged man and his beliefs, detailing how he built a rocket to prove and validate his belief that the world is flat, and how he died in the process. Don't worry, I won't sit here and tell you about the construction of the rocket or how it crashed like others do. I won't speak ill of a deceased person with funny jokes. On the contrary, I will try to answer the one and only question that has been lingering in my mind since I saw the news: Why did Hughes die?

At first glance, the answer seems simple: to prove what he believed in... And what he believed was the notion that the world is a flat plane, surrounded by ice and settled like a tray, as rarely seen in ancient inscriptions. In today's world, this belief can be subject to various interpretations, explanations, and refutations, of course... But our question is not concerned with that. Our question relates to the feeling that Søren Kierkegaard, in his great emotions, spoke about and used to explain the concepts of faith and life. Passion. According to Kierkegaard, passion was the sole thing that made religion religious and made a person truly human. In his view, a person could only become a true believer by clinging to passion and purifying themselves from all other worldly things, standing alone... Only then would that person become a knight of faith. Perhaps we can see Hughes in this way - a false knight of faith, a misguided fool, a faithful person, a passionate being.

Maybe the Earth is flat, maybe Galileo lied to us, and maybe the whole world is hiding a great truth from us. Maybe it's not true, maybe what we know is correct, and this is just a theory concocted by a group of people. Maybe it's something to laugh at, or maybe it's a passion. Perhaps it is something beyond passion that enables us to be truly human. It is an idea that we can dedicate our lives to. Because perhaps, the idea is the only thing that truly matters.

Mustafa Yıldız

She murmured, "I wonder if our kid has become a flat-earther?" and chuckled when she finished reading the article. She stared at the screen for a bit longer and drifted into memories. They say time passes like water, but it felt like centuries had passed since her childhood. She was in her early thirties, so she wasn't considered old by any means. Yet, the times when she played games with Mustafa in the neighborhood seemed so far away. They were actually neighbors from neighboring apartments, back in the days when the concept of neighborliness meant more than just living in adjacent apartments, during the 90s. All the kids in the neighborhood would gather, play games from morning till evening, enter each other's homes, and no family would worry about their children in the neighborhood. She briefly thought about what had changed in fifteen or twenty years. The internet had entered people's lives so rapidly that it had spun their heads and surprised them in every sense. Was the internet to blame? She said to herself, "Well, Nil, you found something to blame again. You haven't been looking for the kid for months, and now you're making the internet the scapegoat." She smiled again. She missed Mustafa so much, and they hadn't talked in a long time. The hustle and bustle of life had affected their friendship, like many others. They used to see each other more often, but it all changed when Nil got into university. Despite being three years older, they had been good friends since childhood and embarked on many adventures together. The narrow path that led from the back garden of the school in the neighborhood to the wooded area was the biggest fear for the kids in the neighborhood, and only a few of them had the courage to go and see what was there. Mustafa and Nil fearlessly explored the wooded area as ghost hunters and always came back. Years later, when Nil decided to become a journalist after graduating from high school, Mustafa also made the same decision to follow his close friend, even though he was still a high school student. When they took their first steps into adulthood, they were determined to explore as many dark forests in their homeland and even in the world as possible. These idealistic individuals were the ones who suffered the most blows from the realities of life. Perhaps if they weren't so idealistic, they could have been happier. After all, Nil was a decent journalist with a profession, able to pay her rent and bills without burdening anyone or needing assistance. Occasionally, she could even go and choose something to wear for herself. She considered herself lucky in terms of clothing because her preferred style didn't consist of heavily branded pieces sold in expensive stores. She would select colorful, loose-fitting clothes for herself. Although it seemed challenging to find such clothes, it was child's play if you knew where to go in a big city like Izmir. Her mother would tease her whenever she saw her, saying, "Here comes our hippie." With her long, coal-black hair and her blue eyes, placed on her symmetrically rounded head as if they were an ornament, she would immediately draw people's attention to her face. She had experienced the difficulties of being a beautiful woman in her personal life. Men who approached her would always hide their true characters and act like someone else in order to charm her. As the flirty stage or the beginning of the relationship progressed, they would gradually drop their masks. That's why she never had a serious relationship, and unlike many of her female counterparts, she didn't feel the need for it. She wasn't against relationships or even marriage, but she didn't feel compelled. Her mother would occasionally express her dissatisfaction with this matter, but her daughter was so skilled at expressing herself that the poor woman would end up being convinced. Nil knew that Mustafa also experienced a sense of frustration despite loving his profession. As much as the topics that needed to be covered and investigated were not profitable, unfortunately, they posed more than just a lack of financial value. Engaging with such subjects could endanger her profession or even her health. Under these conditions, practicing journalism and writing felt like a betrayal to her abilities, ambitions, and character. It was necessary to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. Old friends and colleagues could meet, talk, and console each other. After prolonged separations like this, they would complain about their lives for a while and then get lost in childhood memories, laughing out loud.