The Immigration Officer

The room was cold and hostile in the way that only bureaucratic government offices can be. Nobody wanted to be here, and yet everybody was compelled to stay. There was a faint smell of cleaning alcohol and a palpable sense of tension in the air. Numbers were barked intermittently over a crackling microphone, struggling to be heard over the background buzz of forced small-talk. Some people sat wearily in uneven rows of chairs; others restlessly stood against the wall. The room was finely balanced between administration and chaos, order and anarchy.

The officer sat enthroned in a plastic chair. Here was a man who had clearly spent a great deal of his adulthood looking down with great disdain on powerless people. Condescension seemed a cornerstone of his character. He viewed people in much the same way that somebody else might see a mosquito; an intolerable annoyance to be swatted aside at the earliest possible opportunity.

His hair was almost as short as his manner, and there were tired creases on his face; his shirt was frayed slightly around the pockets and cuffs. He had the countenance of a man who would rather be smoking a cigarette in the parking lot. Not looking up from some inconsequential paperwork, he beckoned me to sit by jabbing a finger at the empty chair opposite. 

I flashed a nervous smile as I sat, but the officer seemed to interpret my eagerness for arrogance.

"We called your number already. Why did you not come?"

"I'm very sorry, but I didn't hear my number being called", I said tremulously. This was true.

My explanation seemed plausible enough to the officer, who disdainfully threw my money in a drawer and grudgingly stamped my documents.

If it had been any other avenue of life, I'd have perhaps inquired as to what exactly was his fucking problem. Quickly remembering that he had the power to irreversibly ban me from the country, I held my tongue and forced a stilted smile.

"Do not do this again", he said as his assistant returned my passport. He was ominously vague.

"I have absolutely no intention of doing so", I said.