Mahdieh Ebrahimi

Man in the Box

Mahdieh, 13 February 2025

This morning, I was thinking about finding a way to write about how I feel. It’s been a long time since I wanted to express myself without seeming like I need help or that something is fundamentally wrong with me. If you are reading this, please know that is not my intention. Maybe what I really want is to see my feelings laid out in front of me, to understand myself better.

I wanted to write a short story about what it feels like to move away from your family and country—to start over somewhere new and build a life from scratch. But then again, I feel like no words can express it better than a song I already know. Space Oddity by David Bowie captures this strange combination of emotions perfectly. As I write this, his voice fills the space around me:

“This is Major Tom to Ground Control…”

It feels like I’m in a spaceship, floating far away, where silence, darkness, and nothingness stretch endlessly outside. “Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do.”

The song reminds me of Doctor Who, particularly Peter Capaldi’s Doctor—not the versions played by David Tennant or Matt Smith, but the one who hides all his emotions behind anger and deep pain. More than any other Doctor, Capaldi’s performance embodies a madman in a box. And a madman in a box is still a prisoner, even if that box is the TARDIS, capable of moving through space and time.

“This is Ground Control to Major Tom… You’ve really made the grade…”

In those episodes, I relate to all the Doctor’s hidden feelings—the way he has changed so much that Clara no longer recognizes him. He once loved her, but now he keeps his emotions at a distance, afraid that loving her was a mistake from the start. The more he withdraws, the more fear and frustration consume him, until his loneliness becomes unbearable. Those moments make it painfully clear: he needs his companions more than they need him. They are the ones who keep him sane. In a way, they are his only connection to existence itself.

There’s an episode where the Impossible Girl comforts his younger self, telling him it’s okay to be afraid. I loved that moment.

This morning, I gave a small gift to a friend for his yet unborn child. And in that moment, when I saw how happy it made him, I felt like I existed—like I was real. Maybe, in a way, I needed him for me to become just a little bit more sane so that I could feel a bit of joy, too.

“Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do.”

I won’t deny that there have been dark moments—times when I felt like I just wanted to step out of the tin can and end the pain.

“Am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world…”

But those moments pass.

Hopefully. Anyway, it is 2 am, and I have to go to work tomorrow.