The queue outside immigration is longer than I expected. In the hours I waited, the security detained five legs for disruption, a larynx for not speaking English, and a stomach for vomiting out Thai food. But that doesn’t deter me. I’m fully equipped, my nails polished to elegance, my pen filled with bright blue ink, my documents ordered to perfection.
By the time the officer signals me forward, I settle myself onto the table and begin, my handwriting neat and cursive. Good afternoon, officer.
The full-bodied woman shakes her head. “I’m sorry. You don’t have clearance.”
I point to my birth certificate, the yellowing invitation letter, then pick up my pen and put down what I’ve practised for days onto paper. I am not illegal. I have never committed any crimes. I was born on the border—
“Born, severed or forgotten, it doesn’t matter.”
You don’t understand. We came into the country with an invitation letter. There’s been a mistake. I’m just as wanted!
“Our Nation determines whether you are wanted. Frankly, from the most recent system updates, you can move to the back of the line.”
This is against human rights!
It is then, she breaks out the tape measure, matching centimetres to my profile. “You are 0.83 percent human. You have no rights.”
It takes all I have not to attack her. Instead, I persuade with both logic and emotion. I’m someone’s right hand. The rest of me is graduating from the top Law School of your great country. I’m a valuable asset, too, with my cooking, calligraphy and ErHu skills. Just think about my contributions to cultural diversity, the economy, the—
“Hold up. Top law school you say?” The woman scans the system in front of her.
Yes, yes! The best one. They were interviewed on radio for the South River project! Making a name, winning the hardest battles, beating all odds—
Gently, she picks up the pen from my fingers, and as her right hand scribbles away, I feel my blood vessels beating all the way to my wrist stump, until I almost taste the sweet reunion with the rest of my body. She pushes the paper towards me and in tiny letters, the message reads: Make them change the law.
I lose it. My fingers turn into scythes, my nails scream-sharp, but they barely graze her and the security guards come at me, all full-grown humans with intact bodies. They’re dragging me past the onlooking organs, past the rows of barrier lines that’s taken me so many sleepless nights of queueing to secure a meeting, and I’m thrown right through the glass door, squashed amongst other ghostlike body parts in a ten-by-ten detention room, where I am instructed to calm down.
I pace, I roam, a phantom amongst the ever-growing number that stack up in the centre every day. There are hands here, smelling like curry or chilli or fabric dye, and crooked fingers that can tie mohair or braid wool. There are baby tongues that will never grow. And feet, lost, tracing paths that have long been gone, circling for a way but neither side is home.
I try, anyway. I poke into someone’s once stomach, endure acid and hunger pangs for chives and eggs pie, and hold, until layers of my skin peel away. Blood wells out of my index finger. Suppressing pain, I leap as high as I can go. Scarlet letters drip down the glass wall: Send me back to my country!
The guards outside see, laugh, and ask, “Which one?”
Their question has me trapped. The moment Immigration had accepted my body, I’d been severed off for knowing how to use chopsticks, play instruments and embroider silk…it’d cause too much disorder moving forward. But those skills weren’t nearly enough to guarantee survival if I headed back alone. Now, I am a creature unwelcomed by the new country and a stranger to the old.
The guards laugh harder. I bang against the glass, bang for them to stop, bang until all my rage dissipates into nothing but crimson prints against smeared glass. Finally, I slink down to the floor.
Tomorrow, I promise myself. I will try again. I will pick up trash, and work in kitchens, and do all the most demeaning jobs to find a way back into the queue. I will get out of this hell.
But even as I repeat this, the glass door opens, and the same officer woman is back, only it is the afternoon, and she is working a different job. In her hand, she holds paperwork, offering a different way to get into the country. Circus performers, donors, high-shelved products…the opportunities are endless. Those who are new, old, and desperate fall for it. I think about giving in. Is it really so bad to be regarded as exotic and exciting? To braid hairs falling on pretty necks in malls, and sew endless Hanfu gowns for Carnival costumes, or become attached to someone else’s body?
I am a commodity, undesirable for everyday life but necessary for entertainment. Even if I were reunited with my body, we’d be too different. We’d never fit in. Isn’t that why they’ve allowed the severing to happen in the first place? Would they really want me back now?
I touch the frayed edges of the long-expired invitation letter, and try to accept reality, but when the officer crouches down by my corner, I cannot help whispering, “You want my food, my instruments, my culture, but you don’t want all of me.”
The officer pushes the negotiation form towards me. “There’s a noodle place looking for help. Right next to the best law school.”
I spring up, fingers trembling.
She holds out a pen with the right hand and flattens the paper onto the floor with her left one. Except where her left hand should be is an old stump. Eyes burning and mouth soft, she whispers, “Make them change the law.”
* * *
Ⓒ Annie ZH Sun
