“I don’t believe it, it can’t be true.” The phrase we say almost mechanically, every time reality decides to pull the rug out from under our feet. The truth is far more mundane: no lightning struck you. You were simply up on your cloud.
Konstantina Michou | 05.10.2026 Opinion
“I don’t believe it, it can’t be true.”
I said it almost mechanically, staring indifferently. And at the same moment, a realization hit me harder than the news itself…of course you believe it, it was just more convenient for you not to see it.
“Such a good kid, there’s no way he would…” This is the key phrase that accompanies every small or great surprise, every sudden revelation, every time reality decides to pull the rug out from under our feet. We say it with bated breath, as if lightning struck us out of a clear blue sky.
The truth, however, is far more mundane.
No lightning struck you. You were simply up on your cloud. You lived with the comfort of certainty that people are exactly as you paint them. That their intentions are pure, because that suited you. After all, the world revolves exclusively around kindness, decency, justice, reciprocity, doesn’t it?
The outside world, however — and ultimately, you see — is made of sharp corners, of injustices, of harshness, of whatever is convenient. Since reality hurts, we need the fantastic, the ideal. We shape a world as it should be, because the real one is unbearable, or at least difficult. So, inevitably, we climb up onto the clouds. We look for a refuge, because the ground seems too hard.
At some point, though, either a voice is heard from below, or the people around us nudge us abruptly: “Come down from your cloud.”
At first you resist. You want to stay up there, to protect your illusion. Until the moment of revelation arrives. And then, with your mouth open and your eyes wide with shock, you blurt it out: “I’ve fallen from the clouds!”
And why should you be surprised?
Clouds are not for lounging on.
Clouds exist so we can fall — as if preordained. As if they were waiting for us, laid out from the start, for us to crash down into the truth.
Let’s try again…”I don’t believe it, it can’t be true.”
