
Dear European people with diplomas and legal paragraphs,
Forgive me for writing to you like this – cold.
Just transferred from an air-conditioned morgue,
where, finally, the temperature dropped below 50 degrees.
I’m that boy from Catalonia.
The one from the car cabin.
From the news article you skimmed while sipping your morning coffee
and continued your debate about cattle CO2 emissions.
I write to you after angels showed me images of the life
I will never have.
They said: You were meant to become a human.
Kick your first bicycle.
Laugh while your teeth grew crooked.
Dream of becoming an astronaut.
Or a janitor.
Or a dad.
But I won’t.
And you know what’s the most beautiful part?
I died in a car with the highest environmental standards on the planet.
Aren’t you proud of me?
A child seat compliant with ECE R129.
Upholstery made from eco-leather,
phthalate-free, with recycled threads.
A body built from reprocessed aluminum,
with air filters so clean they purified the very air I never got to inhale.
A hybrid engine to protect the planet I will never grow up on.
Tires made from natural rubber with a green energy flow label.
My dad had just gone to pay a new CO2 transfer fee
based on “the vehicle’s average kilowatt-hour displacement ratio according to EU directive 742-B.”
He was tired, sweaty.
Overheated – like the world of eco protocols and QR codes
that had suffocated his common sense.
But don’t worry.
He paid everything.
To the last cent.
You may sleep peacefully, dear MEPs.
I died in a car that saves the planet.
And now, if God and your regulations allow,
I will be buried in accordance with European environmental standards:
In a coffin made from certified wood,
without lacquers that emit harmful fumes.
With fabric lining made from corn starch – biodegradable, naturally.
No metal parts – because stainless steel is not “zero impact” in decomposition.
Laid to rest in a plot with minimal impact on local flora and fauna.
With carbon-neutral transport to the cemetery,
assuming, of course, my parents are eligible for the grant.
My little death box will be properly labeled – with a QR code, of course –
so that the environmental inspector can confirm
that the death of a child did not disrupt the biodiversity of the soil.
You are satisfied.
The Earth remains clean.
And I remain in it.
The car is clean.
I am not.
I asked the angels, a bit confused,
what if, say, I had been born in Grude, Bosnia?
They said:
“Son, your dad would’ve left you with Janja at the cigarette stand.
Or at the gas station.
Or just opened the windows and lit a smoke.
He’d tell you: ‘Don’t worry, son, I’ll be back.’
He might be rough, but if you grew up – you’d be a man. Not whatever it is they raise up there.”
He wouldn’t have a parenting diploma.
Wouldn’t know about EU directives.
But he’d know – you don’t leave a child in a car when the outside feels like Mercury.
If I were Herzegovinian, I’d be alive today.
I might’ve even driven the car myself.
Our kids learn that early.
Because we know who you are.
In the European Parliament.
Dehumanized killers in tailored jackets.
People who love statistics more than children’s lungs.
And just one more thing:
If there were such a thing as a European Children’s Parliament,
you’d already be where you belong –
in a detention camp for unempathetic psychopaths.
Locked between posters reading “Children Are Our Priority”
and a machine for recycling conscience –
which, unfortunately, hasn’t been invented yet.
Yours, never hugged,
never erased,
never grown,
The Boy from the Cabin,
Certified Euro 7.