Illusion Dies When Sirens Sing

20.01.2025 — On a flight returning from Sarajevo to London

No one speaks of the quiet disappointment that comes when love unmasks itself, when the truth of what you once believed in, and everything you built around it begins to crumble. Few have the courage to admit that what they called love was only the shadow of what they hoped it could be.

He never loved me as I was. He loved the reflection of himself he found in my eyes, the one that made him feel whole, capable, and sufficient,

Yet, he didn’t even hesitate to cast me aside when what was mirrored from my eyes did not serve him anymore.

Me? I wanted so much to be in love with him that I confused devotion for truth and I forced myself to forget.

Even so, sometimes, a single peercing look speaks much more than what a sentence can say.

When the tenderness in the eyes of someone who once swore I was the person he loved most in the world vanished overnight, all I could ask was,

‘Did he ever really love me?’

When I searched for that love again, I found only cruelty. A calm, practiced kind that hides behind reason and leaves no visible wounds instead a heart that’s shattered into million pieces.

What broke me was not losing him, but understanding that the love he made me believe in had never existed.

And so, he left just when I began to believe I could be my whole self with him. And in the silence that followed, I was left with the idea that authenticity is what makes a woman unlovable. He made me believe the ruin was mine, when in truth, he was fighting the distance between who he wanted to be and who he really was.

That never mattered to me. Yet he kept listening to the voice on his left shoulder that whispered,
“Make her believe her depth is the reason she cannot be loved. Break her so completely that she never rises again, and you will never have to face the man you failed to become.”

I wanted to scream, to demand meaning from what remained, but I no longer knew where to ask, or who would answer.

So I wrote this instead. Not from hatred, but from recognition. The kind that comes when illusion finally burns away and what remains is the part of ourselves we spend years refusing to see.

“I don’t want to think about him anymore,” Amy repeated to herself as she sat in class. When she felt like she was being watched, she realized that hadn’t come off as a thought but rather as something she said out loud. Everyone was staring at her.
“Yes, Amy? Do you have something to add to the discussion?”
All the blood in her body instantly rushed to her cheeks. She tried to pull her focus away from the blushing.

While she had no idea what the discussion was even about, she nervously cleared her throat before speaking.
“No, Mr. Doyle. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
Mr. Doyle gave her a nod and carried on with his lecture.

At least this sudden moment of embarrassment pulled her attention away from being imprisoned by her intrusive thoughts.

Mr. Doyle was telling the story of Odysseus and the Sirens, when she started to listen.
“After escaping the underworld, but before his departure from Circe’s Island, Circe warns Odysseus of the deadly obstacles ahead called the Sirens. As monstrous women, dangerous for their beauty and feared for their voices, the Sirens sing so beautifully and hauntingly that no man can resist. Their voices reveal all the secrets of the world, the knowledge of eternal memory. And if a man ever listens, he is lured to his death.”

Amy’s thoughts were stirred. Her interpretation of the story wasn’t remotely similar.

The Sirens were not temptresses. They were keepers of forbidden wisdom, demonized by a world afraid of feminine power. She thought to herself.

“Still, as a man ever so curious and hungry for knowledge, Odysseus wants to hear them. After his crew plug their ears with beeswax, they tie him tightly to the mast. Odysseus gives strict orders, telling them not to untie him no matter how much he begs. While they’re passing the island, the Sirens sing. The invitation in their voices, offering him flattery, secrets, knowledge, the promise of understanding the world, becomes irresistible to Odysseus. He thrashes, screams, and begs to be freed. But his former orders spare his life. The ropes hold, and they pass safely.”

Look at Odysseus, for God’s sake. He tied himself to the mast and was praised for surviving the Sirens, as if turning away was an act of heroism.

A subtle smile placed itself on Amy’s face with that thought.

After letting the story sink in, Mr. Doyle started speaking again.
“The real tragedy of the Sirens wasn’t their song. It was that men listened and let themselves fall. In stories like this, women’s power isn’t punished for what it is, but for how dangerously persuasive it becomes when men stop thinking.”

Amy was almost deceived by the elegance of his subtle way of blaming women.

Wait… Women are powerful and admirable, but they become dangerous when men stop thinking?

She was furious at Mr. Doyle, but she couldn’t help but admire his literary intellect again, disguising the blame as analysis, shifting it indirectly.

So, if men fall, they are not the ones to be held responsible? Instead, it’s the women, for being persuasive? As if being persuasive is what makes women dangerous to begin with.

Amy rolled her eyes at the thought.

When her gaze met Mr. Doyle’s, he gave her a piercing look. But Amy couldn’t help it. She was caught in a silent tennis match between Mr. Doyle’s arguments and the relentless volley of her own thoughts.

Most men don’t even pay attention, even when they claim to. They are so proud of themselves for not listening, for remaining “strong and masculine.”

While rage boiled inside her, Mr. Doyle was giving other historical examples.
“History rarely silences women for being wrong. It silences them for their influence. Think about all the wars throughout ancient history. Cleopatra embodied a dangerous form of female power. Rome portrayed her not as a strategist or a sovereign, but as a siren-like seductress. She was able to make Mark Antony abandon an empire.”

You’ve got to be kidding me. Cleopatra’s power never relied on her beauty; men found it easier to glorify her face than confront her intellect, strategy, and mastery of empire.

She sighed to herself.

Their fragile male egos couldn’t bear that a woman ruled one of history’s greatest civilisations far better than they ever did.

Amy frowned without intending to. Her expressions were ahead of the discussion, as if she knew what was coming next.
“Think of Medea. After Jason’s betrayal, she made one of the most powerful men in history feel the weight of it on his own terms. Her rage and autonomy became her crimes and for that alone, she was branded a monster.”

Is this for real? So when a man’s actions are aligned with his desires, it’s his right, but when a woman follows her heart, she is evil?

Amy started to bite her nails.

Mr. Doyle paused with intention, then returned to his lecture with perhaps the most storied woman in ancient history.
“Helen of Troy embodied the most perilous kind of beauty, the kind that made men reckless. She wasn’t taken or manipulated; she left. And in doing so, she became the reason for a decade of bloodshed. Entire armies crossed the sea because of her, and when Troy burnt, it was her name that echoed through history. She didn’t wield a sword, but her choices were just as destructive. Helen didn’t need to fight to start a war; she only had to exist exactly as she did and let men tear the world apart for her.”

So the beauty and charm a woman carried was to be blamed for drawing attention, for being seen? Anytime a man acted irresponsibly, his defeat wasn’t about his own weakness but about how admirable and persuasive the woman was?

At this point, Amy couldn’t wait to hear what was coming next.
“All of these women had something in common. They led those who followed them to their own end.”

Amy was speechless.
“Cleopatra convinced Mark Antony to forsake his legacy and meet his end beside her in suicide. Medea, in her fury, destroyed Jason’s legacy and future. Helen, whose presence brought forth the Trojan War, became the reason Troy fell.”

Amy looked around to see whether she was the only one reacting the way she did. She didn’t realise that Mr. Doyle was watching her.
“Whether through desire, betrayal, or myth, each of them was cast for what their presence made others do,” said Mr. Doyle with a subtle smile on his face.

Simultaneously, Amy held her own discussion in her mind; the one where she could speak freely.

If you are a man, it is everything about a woman that makes her dangerous. Their fear comes from their powerlessness; they keep blaming women because they are crushed under their fragile male egos.

Mr. Doyle started walking around the class, searching for a spark of objection.
“So, linking this back to what we discussed, what do the Sirens represent? How do you see the connection between their alluring voices in women’s bodies that bring death to those who follow them and the modern portrayal of women?”

This was the moment Amy had been waiting for. She immediately raised her hand.
“Yes, Amy,” said Mr. Doyle.

When she heard Mr. Doyle’s tone, Amy paused for a second. Was he… excited?
“The story tells a lot about how women have been treated throughout history. The Sirens represent the power of the feminine voice and the threat of emotional depth in a world built on masculine conquest.

Sirens were never monsters. They sang because they had something to say, something too ancient, too true. But men heard danger, seduction, and death.

They feared her voice, saying, ‘She’ll destroy you if you listen.’
But it wasn’t death they were afraid of, it was recognition.
Because her song didn’t kill. It remembered.

Amy was almost in a trance, compelled by her own words. She carried on.
“Sirens were not dangerous because they spread death with their voices. The danger was how their voice made men feel, which was something they couldn’t control.

Odysseus literally ties himself up so he can feel the Sirens without letting them affect him. It’s such a metaphor for how men often try to be close to a woman’s depth and insight without actually engaging with it. This strongly reflects how powerful and expressive women are often turned into symbols of danger or temptation.”

She placed a challenging look on her face and looked directly at Mr. Doyle.
“This says a lot about how much fear there is around letting women’s voices in fully. How much strength it takes for men to actually listen. Funny enough, instead of admitting this lack of strength, men accuse women of having a poisonous voice, and society blindly accepts it, teaching it as ‘Mythic Literature.’”

She was a bit hesitant about adding this final sentence. She couldn’t afford to fail this course, or she wouldn’t be able to proceed to her final year. She knew her mother would be furious for not keeping her horses in the stable. Yet she carried on regardless.
“Sirens were dangerous because of what they revealed. Yes, men had to die if they truly listened, because hearing them meant facing the reality of everything they built their identity around and letting it fall apart.

It’s not about death in a literal sense. It’s about the death of a man’s character, the one built on a complete lie, a projection of what a ‘strong, masculine man’ is supposed to be, something society imposed and clung to as the absolute truth.”

She preprared for her closing statement.

Goodbye, dreams of becoming Mr. Doyle’s assistant next semester.

Since she already entered the point of no return she didn’t mind continuing her words.

“Listening to the Sirens meant being confronted with all the insecurities men buried, all the truths they weren’t ready to admit. That kind of reckoning would feel like death, because letting go of that illusion meant losing the only version of themselves they had ever been taught to be.

They didn’t die because women’s voices were deadly. They died because they couldn’t bear to listen to their actual reality.”

Her adrenaline was slowly fading as fear started to take its place. But when Amy’s eyes met Mr. Doyle’s, she saw something she didn’t expect: pride.

Before letting Mr. Doyle speak, Amy went ahead and said,

“I apologise if my words came off as too sharp.”

Mr. Doyle looked at her, almost as if he were about to burst into laughter.
“Amy, here is the learning for the day. Never apologise for speaking too sharply when your words carry your truth.”

Mr. Doyle looked directly into her eyes and nodded, and Amy knew that nod carried a message.

Could my dream be closer than I think or am I just being delusional as usual? she wondered.

“Class dismissed, everyone. Amy, can you collect everyone’s homework and leave it on my desk before you go?” said Mr. Doyle.

This time, it was Amy’s turn to nod.

If this unraveled a truth in you, share it. It might heal someone else too.