天橋下滑一跤

Time: 26 Mar 2010
Location: London City Airport

Second day was supposed to be on sky.

The incident of mine was quickly informed by my case worker from Immigration to Brussels Airline, which is the one took me to the country, therefore is responsible of sending me out of it. My case worker is a person I’ve never seen, nonetheless being mentioned a lot by security people around me. I guess it’s a way to make me believe there’s someone taking care of my situation, and also keep themselves clear of trouble and unnecessary question.

I spent last night on a security van. Inside of it, there’s an iron cage separating us from driver’s seat and trunk. Some matters happening on the van are with those who shared the backseat with me. They actually are other law breakers picked up from some police stations. Hanging with handcuffed is quite a story, but I was just too tired to find out more. The least I can remember is that behind my seat, a Spanish speaking woman can’t stop crying; she murmured or prayed all night long in that language I don’t speak. Sitting next to her is a young white man; this dude is such a pain in the ass. He said some insulting words to our driver and laughed aloud at his own jokes. Besides making me laugh, this guy was making me very uncomfortable. The mid-age Afghanistan guy next to me has not much to say, but a rather strong smell to spread. When everything’s getting unbearable, I started telling myself this won’t last long, however, it does. The van went up to Newcastle, and then came back to Manchester, eventually arrived at a detention center in Oxford at 6 in the morning. Two hours later, I was the first one taken away to London City Airport. Though I had no time to rest, but was glad to be rid of this group of people.

In the airport, they gotta handcuff me when we walked through the lobby. The handcuff thing hurts both my feeling and wrists a little bit. Anyway, the new security girl got me hot food and soup, so it mends! During this long boring waiting time, I found out, according to what they said, my flight ticket is supposed to be paid by Brussels Airline, somehow wasn’t being paid. So here is the option, I could still board this flight and go home right away, if I’d paid this 2700 pounds ticket by myself in time. Since my personal account has no more than 1000 pounds, things did not work out that way. The sequel is another endless waiting time and unknown future ahead of me. In meanwhile, there’s a show called “By Any Means” on the TV happens to present travel in Taiwan. I told the young security girl that is my home country, she was first amazed, and then she said “Wow! So close.” pointing out the distance between me and TV, I turned and said “So far!” ironically. Amusingly, as Taiwan is never considered a tourism country, to see the scene of it on TV while I was detained is already way beyond expectation, when I realized it might be the first time since I left it one year ago, a sentimental touch on my heart.