Malek Abdalla

I wake each day with the feeling that I’ve somehow cheated death. At 24, that feeling has become my normal. Growing up in South Sudan, a place marred by war and fractured dreams, I learned early that survival was more than just staying alive—it was about resisting the emptiness around me. I wanted an education, a life that could somehow mean something, but as civil unrest continued and schools shuttered, I watched that hope slip away.

Europe became my horizon, a place where a man like me might live without constantly looking over his shoulder. I saved every coin I could, fought through three attempts to escape. I made it as far as Tunisia once, scraping by as a day laborer. But a black man has no standing in Tunisia; we’re treated like ghosts, labor with no rights, waiting for police to make us disappear. Eventually, they did. They dragged me and others into the desert, a silent march toward Libya. They took everything—money, shoes, even the dignity of choice. “Walk or be shot,” they said.

We marched under a brutal sun, heat gnawing at our strength, forcing some to their knees. Bodies left behind became landmarks, warnings of what we could become. By some cruel miracle, I made it to Tripoli. I took work wherever I could find it, sharing a cramped room with others as desperate as me, knowing each day was a gift we couldn’t count on. As soon as I had enough, I tried again to reach Europe, and again I failed. Sent back to Sudan, back to a place where life is a question no one cares to answer.

Europeans build walls and think they’re safe, that they’re protected from the hunger that drives us. They don’t see that for people like me, those walls are just obstacles. I’ll find a way. And if I don’t? Then let it be. Death is not the worst fate for someone who’s been dead inside all along.