TeenTimes/Orla Tinsley: My mother and I spent five days in Paris recently. The lack of security around the Metro stations was unnerving.

One woman who had no ticket pushed through the rotating bars so that she could get past security. There was no one there to stop her. There were no security people on the outskirts or checking bags on the inside. After riding through dark tunnels in fear, Euro Disney seemed a much safer option.

We exhausted ourselves, our money and our imaginations in Euro Disney. At 10pm we took a seat on the kerb for the parade. There were children clambering on parents' heads and creeping through legs. Such a large crowd. I couldn't help wondering, for the second time that trip, whether we were safe.

An enthusiastic Mickey Mouse began the parade. He was followed by evil cackles from three floats, each holding Disney baddies Jafar, the Wicked Queen and Ursula, the half-woman half-octopus. Behind each float were six "followers of evil" with black boxes that looked like coffins. In that moment of bellowing voices, cloaked followers, light trickery and crying children, a feeling of discomfort came over me. Minutes later, the Disney Princesses and Princes followed and asked us to "Let light banish dark". I began to think that perhaps I really was too old for this. I wanted to love it but I couldn't. The reality of today wouldn't allow me. It seems terror has slipped into my psyche. The illusion of safety was disintegrating, even amid the innocence of Euro Disney.

The fireworks began spewing across the Disney Princess castle, bursting with light through the dark. They reminded me of the London bombings. The "darkness" took over. An image of Disneyland exploding flipped through my mind.

We are all polluted with messages of negativity and anguish. In this bubble of beauty, colour, and sensory overload, I was thinking of war. No sugar-coated popcorn could heal it because the reality is too raw. Positivity is the fuel which helps us move on but like the world's oil supply it seems as though we could run out of this precious resource at any time. I know that good does not always triumph over evil. But what is evil anyway? Hurricane Katrina devouring Louisiana? The US occupying Iraq? People dying prematurely in our pathetic excuse for a health system?

In Charles De Gaulle airport, I saw two girls aged no more than 10. One giggled as the other said how funny it would be to have a bomb on the plane. They then threw their arms in bomb-like gestures as they collapsed giggling.

Arriving back in Ireland, I felt better until the security man paid more attention to my real-life smile than he did to my passport picture. It made me wonder if Ireland is safe and how secure we really are.

Walt Disney's affirmation that "anything is possible" has a deeper significance in the world of today. Anything is possible, but that anything is not always a positive thing. In today's world anything really means anything. This thought alone terrifies me.

Orla Tinsley (18) lives in Newbridge, Co Kildare

Submissions of 500-word articles are welcome from teenagers to teentimes@irish-times.ie. Please include a phone number