I close my eyes as the plane takes off. My whole body is being pushed back against the seat from the force, as the tip of the plane lifts up, up, up. I have never been scared of flying, but I have always found the take-off part a little uncomfortable. It makes me dizzy. Then the plane stabilizes itself, and I relax. Again, I have no power here. I only have one task, and that is to sit here for the next several hours. Simply sit, and look out the window. It is not difficult, I tell myself. I can do that.
As time passes, I long for my Kindle. I left it back home. I don’t know why. Nobody said I could not bring it, I simply would not. I didn’t think I would be relaxed enough anyway to be able to read. It is difficult, if not impossible, to disappear into another story, when your own life suddenly demands your undivided attention. So instead, I lean back in my seat, feeling a little tired. The restlessness I usually feel doing nothing is gone. I close my eyes.
You are now probably wondering what The Camps consist of. I know this book I am writing will never be published, The West would never allow it, but I keep thinking about you, you, a reader, reading my words, and in my head I picture you as someone from another time, or world, who knows nothing about my world. So I will explain. As I have written before, The East is being torn apart by war, starvation, and even genocides. For years, thousands of people, millions probably, have fled these wars and this way of living. And the only way to run is westwards. But here comes the tricky part. The West despises The East. They despise everything with it, especially their hold of traditional values and inefficiency. Their people are considered people only in theory. In practice, they are nothing more than animals, wild and disgusting. They rape, and steal, and fight. To let them into our societies would have been a disaster. That is what they say, The Government, the politicians. That is the Public Opinion. They come to The West, to steal from us and take advantage of our hard work. They are evil. They will not contribute to our society, only take our goods and give us nothing. They are inhuman, they have no humanity, no empathy. Therefore, they are not allowed into our countries. Instead, they are gathered in terrible, lawless camps by the border, to live out their years, unless they choose to go back to The East. But still they come. I have always wondered why. I have seen the pictures in the news, of The Camps. Dirty tents, coldness. They are crowded, many more thousands of people living there than it was intended to. They know this, and still they come. The politicians say it is because they are stupid, unintelligent. That they still want to believe they will have a great, perfect life if they come. What else than stupidity can make them believe such a thing? The Government asks. I don’t know the answer. If The Government says so, they are probably right. No ripples. They are wild animals and a threat to our communities and we, therefore, have to keep them in The Camps to protect ourselves.
But these camps need workers. Just a few, to keep it a little organized, at least. I do not know exactly what kind of work, but I think it is simply handing out clothes and ration the scarce food. And these workers are made up by criminals of The West, seen temporarily unfit to live with the rest of us, and as punishment they are sent to The Camps to do this work. The dirty work. I have heard that people sent to The Camps struggle real hard afterward. I have heard they never come back the same. In the news, there is regularly posted about one of these so-called animals getting lose and committing a rape, a murder, a theft. That is why it is so dangerous to be near them. And this is where I am going.
Since the border on land is heavily guarded and secured behind high electric fences, they come by boat across the sea. They are poor, and the boats are even poorer, simple rubber boats unfit to carry so many. Most of them drown, their boats become overpowered by the waves. Occasionally, the boats are spotted by a patrol, and the coast guard takes them back to the eastern bank. The Camps are therefore located by the ocean, on islands by the border. This is where most of the boats land. In the beginning, many years ago, they were all sent back immediately, but too many boats came, and The Camps grew and became permanent. Sometimes I feel bad for them, but it is rarely, and I try to put that feeling away. It goes against the Public Opinion, and besides, they choose it for themselves. They can always go back to The East.