Extract 2

“Please follow me ma'am,” she hears and she sheepishly follows, full of the uttermost level of fear. Then the lady she is following turns around and says, “we will call you shortly,” motioning for her to take a seat. Fear, because she knows neither what is to come nor if she has made a mistake. Her stomach makes a horrible grouching noise. She is not sure if it is due to the fear emotion or hunger. All she has with her to eat was two noodle packs that would need cooking.
Before now, she had been taken to Toronto for four days. She got a chance to speak with her darling at a detention house she was taken to, but as she was instructed by the lawyer (the wife of her uncle’s pastor-friend) that she had to limit the amount of time she calls Alex because invisible eyes would be watching her as well as ears within the walls. She was to pretend to not know anyone at all in Canada, because she is to pretend to be just an abused refugee. This according to the lawyer would raise her chances to be helped. She stuck to the plan and whenever she did call Alex, she spoke the battered French she knew, hoping that could make some difference for her situation. The place she was taken to was a motel-looking institution only for detained refugees. Other ladies were there, happily living their lives before the judgement day arrived to announce what was to become of each one. Funkè heard that there was girl that had been in the institution for over a year, still waiting for the Canadian government to issue her stay-papers to her, which made her stomach tighten even more. She is not planning on being anywhere away from her husband for so much of a long time.

“That is not my portion,” Funkè pronounced under her breathe. She missed Alex so much. She never got a chance to speak with him as she would have wanted and had no idea whatsoever of his whereabouts. She made up her mind to be patient because according to the lawyer, this was the routine for all individuals demanding for a refugee status.

So now she is taken back to the border for the final decision of an approval to enter into Canada or not. A lady in black uniform starts to approach her. The lady has no expression whatsoever on her face. Then suddenly, Funkè hears so loud in her eardrums, what seems to be the American national anthem. 'It can't be,' she thinks to herself, now feeling her fingers and toes going numb. The woman gets closer and closer. She motions Funkè to come along with her. Funkè takes the chance of asking if the woman could hear the American National anthem, to which the woman denies. Silently, Funkè follows and is led to a room where she had a short chat with an officer about why she wants to live in Canada. The officer did not smile at her entrance, “please sit,” says he. She sits on the edge of the chair, not knowing what to expect.

He goes straight to the point, “I am very sorry but your request was denied!” she hears. She hears a sentence that would determine her future. So simply put. No comma, no emotions, just simply said as a routine. She tries to continue listening but all she could hear is the American National anthem in her eardrums. ‘It cannot be!!!’ she screams in her mind. As she zooms in and out of the man speaking, she feels as though she is spinning into a dark hole. The man sitting down with her paperwork in front of him is saying, pointing to a paper with a pen,

“I would have to get some officers to escort you back to the United States of America right after I take your fingerprints on this spot.” The American national anthem now begins to fade off in her mind. Another officer approaches her, asks her to bring her hands forward as he clips two metals on her wrists to lead her into an American Police car. Tears begin to find their way to the surface of her eyeballs uncontrollably. She sees her world shattering slowly like the waterfall of the Niagara Falls from a distance. She knows she would not be seeing her sweet husband anytime soon.

She feels like she is trapped in a world of a nightmare that would not pass away. One second she is being hauled from the back of a van with bars behind the driver in case the passenger in the back seat goes crazy and did regrettable things. The next moment she is being filled up by a large African American woman who boomed out, “spread your legs!” Funkè obeys.

“This your real hair girl?” She nods. “Here’s your uniform.” Orange. Funkè stares at the uniform. “They ain’t gon put themselves on you girl, next!” A male uniformed officer leads her into another room to change into the orange uniform and hand over her own clothes, with whatever else she has on her. The tears seem frozen in her tear ducts. Still shocked with unbelief, she merely follows the instructions being yelled at her and some other young ladies. Maybe she is being punked or something.

Caged behind a ten foot tall, fifteen feet long and seven feet wide room with nothing but an iron-made bed, an iron-made toilet and cold floor, Funkè begins to come to some realisation of this crazy occurrence.

She sits on the hard bed, trying not to remember how she ended up like she did. All she could do is rehearse to herself about how life was so unfair. How she has been betrayed. It just could not be possible. Is there still a God or did the world go into extinction and took God along without her knowledge? It is  right now beyond her wildest imagination to be sitting in jail. Jail? Seriously?

It seems as though she has been chasing after the wind and really, there was a possibility that there is no God. How did this happen? She prayed didn't she? Herself and her husband prayed for guidance. How did they not see this ahead of them? According to her, she lived a good, carefully planned life. Gets into no trouble, and definitely concerned about being heaven-bound by treating other people rightly and praying always.

Not able to contain herself, she begins to scream.

She screams so loud that three lady-sergeants show up in front of her cell.

“Whatta hell is going on withchu you young lady, uhn? Whatha hell?!” exclaims a blonde, green-eyed lady in uniform. Funkè is sitting on the hard bed, facing the door of the cell, saliva dribbling from her mouth onto a rough itchy, gray blanket they provided her with to keep warm.

“I’m talking to you gurl, why you scream like that?” she stares at Funkè, expecting some words from the skinny black girl with eyes puffed up enough that you could barely see her brown eyes, and oversized orange outfit that swallows her figure. The young black girl says nothing but to stare back, trying to make sense out of it all. The other sergeants merely stare back at her with what looks like disgust for getting them to get up, missing whatever show they were engorged in on the television.

“Uhrr, I hate this shit,” says one of the sergeants, “am gon return to my unit ladies,” and she walks away as the other follows. The blonde sergeant stays behind turning to take a look again at the young black girl who begins to rock back and forth with her head between her flexed knees, feet on the bed. “Hey you, are you ready to talk about what just happened?” She gets no answer. She waits a bit more, and then walks away hissing and shaking her head. ‘Damn this crazy-ass job,’ she thinks to herself.

Funkè just could not believe what is happening to her. She needs to get out of here, and get out fast, tell someone she is innocent, did nothing wrong and continue her life, revised. What did she do wrong anyway?

The only clear memory she has is that of the last face she saw before the nightmare began- Alex.

'Oh my God, where is he?' she thinks in despair. None of them knew how this dilemma started or how it would end, 'where is he on this dreadful face of the earth,' again she thinks, desperately in need of some answers.

The screaming has stopped and so has the interrogating blabbering sergeants.  Funkè drifts off to think more about Alex. The only person she had learnt to count on for the past two years of their relationship. Really, her only trustworthy family now. Family! Humph. That word just seems too confusing; so full of hope and yet disappointments. Its traditional description just doesn’t seem to fit into her world too well. Everyone appears to know a lot about pretending to love her. And there she was, always wanting to please all, especially those she put on a pedestal, allowing herself to be stripped off of her rights; her uncles, aunties, mother and father.

Extract taken from upcoming book, "My American Dream"

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