31-Zach #3
A tiny crack of a smirk pulls at his mouth as he leans forward, throwing himself into his response.
“It’s funny you say that our representation of religion is controversial, when the construct of religion itself is far more so.
I grew up with the church and saw the hypocrisies firsthand.
We were wealthy once, and when we lost everything, my mum went from donating fortunes to putting a few crumpled notes in the basket. ”
Flicking his thumb, Judas twirls his ring.
“I remember her pleading them for help when we fell behind. She’d given them hundreds of thousands over three decades.
And do you know what they did? The church denied her.
Not only that, they told her that we weren’t a part of the congregation because we no longer ‘lived in the area.’ I was young when I realized the church, religion, was not the same as faith. ”
“Somnium mainly donates to music, art, and theater programs. But you also have donated thousands to women’s and homeless shelters, and LGBTQ-plus youth centers. Why those?”
“Because these are the people most affected by the church’s contradictions. By the trauma ignored, the harm swept under the rug. But mainly because I know what it’s like to go without. Food. Shelter. Safety. I know what it’s like to be ignored, tossed aside, and I know that they do, too.”
Judas’s confession settles between us, concentrated as the humid air. The booth’s too packed for two people with this much static charge. I barely have time to process it all before I push forward.
“Why the persona, the anonymity?”
“Because,” he says slowly, the dim bus catching the faint shimmer of sweat at his temples, “I never wanted this to be about me. Or any singular entity of the band. It’s always been about the music. The message. The story.”
“Regardless of the masked, anonymous persona, you’ve grown quite a reputation as a rather popular sex symbol. There’s controversy among your fanbase about what some refer to as the ‘hyper-sexualization’ of you and the other members. Does being seen in that sense bother you?”
“Desire is inherently human, and sex can play a major factor in that. We are here to serve as another apparatus in which the listener can explore themselves in a place, a way, that is safe and healthy. All we, he, did was create a medium in which they could harness life’s rawest impulses.”
His fingers drum once against the table, restless.
“He being your infamous deity? How does the unofficial namesake member play into Somnium? Is it all just a stunt?”
“He was simply the inspiration.” Judas laughs, and it tumbles through the bus. “He showed me what life can be when you commit to seeing outside yourself. We’re all connected. And when you learn how to tap into that connection, you grasp how much power we truly have.”
“What is your power?”
“My power is in creating the medium. Some say I saved them.” He taps his chest. “That wasn’t me. That was them. They had the power to see what they needed.”
“Is that why you use the masks?”
“The mask is not meant to hide identity but rather transform presence. Mirrors in and of themselves aren’t important. No one cares about the mirror. They care about what they see in it.”
“What do you want them to see?”
He lifts his gaze to mine. “Everyone sees something different, even when looking at the same thing. Some hyper-fixate on certain traits. Others are blind to flaws. The mirror’s got no power except to reflect what’s already there. The power lies in the individual and how they process what they see.”
“So metaphorically, you’re the mirror, and the interpretation of the music is the listener’s reflection?”
“Exactly.” He leans forward, elbows on the table. “Each person’s got a unique experience. Even if they’re listening to the same song, the ‘reality’ isn’t the same. It can’t be.”
“But it’s the mirror’s ability to reflect. Without that, there’d be nothing for the listener to see.”
“True.” He tilts his head. “But a mirror is useless unless people choose to see.”
I slink back into the booth. “What saved the artist who saves so many?”
He peers at me for a long moment, as if weighing whether I deserve the truth. Or maybe he’s deciding whether to finally confess.
“They do. Hearing the crowd sing words that I wrote in my darkest moments reminds me that even in the coldest, deepest place, I was never truly alone. The pain meant something. It served a greater purpose. Every time someone listens, there’s a connection.
But the thing about any of this is that I could have all the proof, shout it from rooftops, and people would still choose not to believe me.
Because belief isn’t about evidence. It’s about resonance. ”
I lean forward, hitting stop on the camera. The silence that follows feels like the moment after a storm, before you’ve stepped outside your house to assess the damage. Everything he said only makes me fall further into the abyss of our inescapable attachment.
I swallow the flood of emotion threatening to drown me.