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This short story is brought to you by the author of Maggie's Milkman and Extraordinary Rendition.
I see this as more of a work in progress than the finished article.
An electrical storm crackled above the camp, lightning
flecked the dark clouds, rain threatened but so far they were empty threats. Thunder
competed with wailing babies for our attention.I watched the fire flicker and
tore another page from L'Equip to try to keep the flames flickering a little
longer. I hoped it wouldn't rain, our make shift shelter had a hole in it and
the ground was already tacky. It seems like weeks since we arrived at the camp, but it was in fact just two days ago that my wife and I and our two children
wearily pitched our tent. Back then we had a generous space, but as more and
more families arrived we were squeezed to bursting point. Tempers were frayed,
people were tired, hungry, confused. The guards treated us like animals in an
abattoir, commodities to be processed and controlled rather than humans to
comforted and consoled. Something, anything could light the blue touch paper
and then what? All hell would break loose; it would be the survival of the
fittest.
We hadn't wanted to leave our homes, but we didn't have a choice, we'd been made to leave at gunpoint, told to leave everything except the bare essentials. We were victims, not criminals yet here we were in a camp that felt more like a prison; guards with automatic rifles patrolled the parameters, they told us we weren't prisoners, yet told us not to escape.
The headline on the newspaper I just burnt had read swarms of migrants swamp Calais, charming! The media were dehumanising us, while the politicians were discussing our fate, deciding where we should go. They couldn't agree where to put us, so while they were playing politics, we were left to suffer. Right wingers across Europe screamed don't let them in, left wingers worried about the effect it would have on wages.
Most of us had thought it would be easy, after all we were all part of Europe, we were told to head for Dover and then get to France. From there, there would be people to help us, or so they said. But instead of help, we were directed to this place, the Jungle, recently vacated by migrants who'd decided that Britain after a nuclear accident was probably not the best option after all.
We'd left our homes and belongings in the exclusion zone, we'd separated from our loved ones, we'd left behind our lives, but who knew we'd left our humanity behind as well.
We hadn't wanted to leave our homes, but we didn't have a choice, we'd been made to leave at gunpoint, told to leave everything except the bare essentials. We were victims, not criminals yet here we were in a camp that felt more like a prison; guards with automatic rifles patrolled the parameters, they told us we weren't prisoners, yet told us not to escape.
The headline on the newspaper I just burnt had read swarms of migrants swamp Calais, charming! The media were dehumanising us, while the politicians were discussing our fate, deciding where we should go. They couldn't agree where to put us, so while they were playing politics, we were left to suffer. Right wingers across Europe screamed don't let them in, left wingers worried about the effect it would have on wages.
Most of us had thought it would be easy, after all we were all part of Europe, we were told to head for Dover and then get to France. From there, there would be people to help us, or so they said. But instead of help, we were directed to this place, the Jungle, recently vacated by migrants who'd decided that Britain after a nuclear accident was probably not the best option after all.
We'd left our homes and belongings in the exclusion zone, we'd separated from our loved ones, we'd left behind our lives, but who knew we'd left our humanity behind as well.
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