‘I don’t want to think this,’ he confesses on the phone, ‘but we have to face the possibility that maybe she didn’t make it. We don’t know how strong she was when they dragged her out of the ocean. Jamilah’s still the only one who’s even seen her.’
More months drag by. After so long of surviving on your wits alone, here you’re not even trusted to cook yourself a meal. The boredom and frustration at being so helpless begins to grind you down.
One night, nearly four months into your stay, the news on the TV in the rec room announces that, from now on, asylum seekers who arrive by boat can be taken to remote foreign islands called Nauru and Manus instead of Christmas Island, and never be allowed to enter Australia. You’re horrified – if you’d left it a few months later to come to Australia, that could have been you.
Even so, there’s still no news about your visa. You feel like the world has forgotten you, left you stranded on this tiny island. The pressure in your chest mounts until you feel like screaming.
You have regular nightmares where Qasim backs you into a corner of a cage, points his finger at you, and sand comes streaming from his fingertip, flowing into your nose and mouth, burying you, until you wake gasping for breath.
Jamilah tells you that she has nightmares too, only hers are about the skeleton of the dead woman in the desert coming to life and nailing her inside a coffin.
Your counsellor, Christine, is a kind woman with bright jewellery. One day, about five months into your stay, she reads you some poems by a woman called Maya Angelou.
‘She’s also someone who overcame a lot of struggles,’ says Christine. The poems are sad, powerful and beautiful. They ease a knot in your soul.
‘In English, there’s a proverb,’ says Christine. ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ As you understand its meaning, a smile spreads over your face.
That night, you have the nightmare again: Qasim’s gaunt face; his yellow eyes; the space slipping away from around you as you stumble backwards. He raises his finger, and the storm of sand begins to fly at you.
Then a voice inside you says: The pen is mightier than the sword. You reach down to your pocket. Rahama’s pen is there. You whip it out and point it at Qasim, and his face drops in horror. He stumbles backwards, cowering. Then you shout the one word that you know will overthrow him forever.
Freedom! you yell, and a blue forcefield blasts out of the tip of the pen. It hurls Qasim into the air with the force of a hurricane. The forcefield clears an open space in front of you, filled with shining blue light.
After you wake up, you feel certain you’ll never have that nightmare again.
‘QUICK, QUICK!’ CRIES Jamilah’s voice.
She’s running across the grassy oval near the dormitories towards you. It’s fantastic how strong and well she seems now.
‘Appointment! Immigration! Now!’ she shouts, and you jump up and run together to the same beige, boxy room where you first talked to Hilary six months ago.
This time, Hilary’s face is glowing with good news. ‘Go and pack your things,’ she tells you both. ‘You have your visas, and we’re putting you on the next plane to Melbourne to live with your Uncle Aadan!’
You and Jamilah throw your arms around each other. You whirl her around, nearly knocking over Hilary. You’re both cheering and sobbing with delight. Finally, it’s over.
When you call Aadan, he’s overjoyed. ‘I have some more good news,’ he tells you.
As soon as he reads the Somali news headline, you know what it means.
‘Bright Dream Orphanage Exposed: al-Shabaab’s Evil Scheme Busted.’
You whoop and punch the air.
‘Now’s the time to start writing articles about it for the Australian media,’ Aadan tells you. ‘We can work on that when you get here.’
That night, you are looking out the window of a plane bound for Melbourne. Jamilah’s sleepy head rests on your arm. The stars wink from the deep black sky.
I wonder where Aunty Rahama is right now, you think. She’d be so proud of us. If she’s still alive, I hope the stars that shine on her are lucky ones.
Your mind goes back to the poem you wrote and left on Christine’s desk as a parting gift.
I W
ILL
R
ISE
A T
RIBUTE TO
M
AYA
A
NGELOU
You now lock me in detention
And damage my hopes
But that is like dust
And one day I will rise.
You may send me to other countries
And shoot me with your words
But one day I will rise.
You may kill me
With your hateful actions
But that is like air
And one day I will rise.
I may have left a fear-filled life
Full of horror
But one day I will rise.
Does my mind upset you
So full of thoughts?
I am an asylum seeker
who seeks freedom.
I don’t have anywhere else to go.
Does it come as a surprise to you
That no matter what
You have done to me
I will forgive you?
Wherever you send me
As long as I see the sun rise
And the moon comes up
I will rise.
I will rise.
To continue with the story, go to scene 40.
To read a fact file on Australia’s immigration policy click here, then return to this page to continue with the story.
You decide to try to swim for the rocks, and you point towards them in an attempt to instruct the woman with the baby to help you kick as hard as she can to help you along. Jamilah is struggling to breathe and can’t do any more than cling to the plastic drum.
The woman, though, is scanning the water desperately. ‘Husband!’ she sobs to you in English. You feel horrified. The water is a churning soup of broken wood and splashing people.
You know, though, that the woman’s husband would
