The words of the accursed letter were etched in your brain to the point where you could recite it by heart. Nevertheless, you read it multiple times a day regardless of how it filled you with rage and rendered you powerless.

You retreated to your bedroom and lay under the soft duvet with the covers tucked underneath the bed. It was warm and safe like your mother’s womb. Notes of hunger chimed in your stomach, but you were strong enough to ignore them. You were immobilised, waiting for someone to breathe life into you. Stillness helped you in slowing time because it was what you needed the most. How else would you escape your gentle prison?

Sometimes you’d look at the window. The sun, beaming through, but refusing to illuminate a path forward. You stared at the ceiling. The white walls staring back like a blank page, beckoning you to rewrite your story. But you were trapped, so you lay still, waiting, hoping, and wanting. Submerged in the reality that once again…

You had failed. You had failed yourself. You couldn’t escape. So, you reached for the letter, and read it again, for the umpteenth time.

UK Home Office
Visas and Immigration

27 June 2024
Private and Confidential

Omolola Adeleke
12 Hamilton Way
W1 H2N

Dear Miss Adeleke,

Notice of Immigration Status – Visa Overstay

We are writing to inform you that, according to our records, your study visa in the United Kingdom expired on 20 March 2024. As of today’s date, you have not applied for an extension or other leave, nor have you departed the UK voluntarily. This means that you are currently residing in the UK unlawfully.

It is important that you act immediately. Under Section 10 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, you may be liable for removal from the UK.

We advise that you seek legal advice, if needed, regarding your options, including voluntary departure. Failure to take action may result in enforcement proceedings.

If you believe this notice has been sent in error, please provide your reference number and relevant documents to the Home Office immediately.

Yours sincerely,
Charles Wandsworth
————————————————-
Assistant Immigration Processing Officer
UK Visas and Immigration

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. You had earned your fresh start in London with honesty and determination. Four years ago, the University of London accepted your application. You were elated. This was the new beginning to show all those who doubted you.

There was your father, who had become a highly educated and wealthy man, despite being born into absolute poverty. Also, your multifaceted mother who was Nigeria’s most successful entrepreneur in pharmaceuticals. Lest you forget, your perfect older sister who had earned scholarships throughout her academic journey, all the way to a PhD, and then met the love of her life. She is now a proud wife, scholar, and mother with two beautiful children.

Then there was you. You’d walked the earth for forty-two years and had little to show but a trail of almosts and what-ifs. For years, you felt the judgement and disappointment from your family. It covered you like a shroud woven into your skin. You could never discard it. You tried the workforce, then entrepreneurship, then returned to the workforce until an idea landed on your lap like an illuminated meteor falling from the sky. You decided to return to school to revolutionise Nigeria’s agro-processing. A master’s in business administration would provide you with the necessary foundation. You tirelessly applied to ten universities and received seven offers. Luckily, the only school you desired offered you a partial scholarship—The University of London. Your last obstacle was to ask your sister to make up the balance.

At a casual lunch with your sister, you shared your news. She looked surprised as she read the acceptance letter. Without looking at you, she told you she’d support your plans in an artificially high-pitched voice. You knew her well; this was the tone she used to veil her lack of belief in you, but you’d prove her wrong. While you’d have preferred a congratulations and encouragement, you settled for her financial assistance.

You would not fail.
You would not fail this time.

Every day, you went to work on the exhausting student visa process. You filled the twenty-page forms, gathered your transcripts, health reports and the endless list of ancillary documentation to prove you were worthy to the emissaries of Her Majesty’s government. It wasn’t all toil and labour. At night, you slept on the couch dreaming of your future. You’d be an A-star student. No television or doom scrolling. You’d spend time in the library after class. Join the right societies. Maybe even start your own. You could almost smell the London air, electric with vitality. You had reached the moment in nature just before the fruit on a tree ripened. Just before a star exploded and spread across the cosmos creating more stars.

The University of London was a large beast with a gaping mouth and gnashing teeth. It stood looming and threatening. You felt insignificant. Everyone around you was young and fresh to the world. There were new social rules and slang. Unspoken customs that you observed but didn’t fully understand. Everything was digital and geared around social media. The multitude of stimuli weighed heavily upon you, but you took your time. One step in front of the other. Your enrolment went smoothly. So did fresher’s week. Over time, you learnt the lay of the land. The campus was no longer a maze but a portal to enlightenment. Then you made a friend and then another. Soon, you had a little ‘over-thirties’ friendship circle which comprised Claire, Paulette and Pimchan. You taught each other something new about the world.

Pimchan had left Thailand for the first time and was sometimes homesick for the clear blue beaches and vibrant street food in Bangkok. Paulette shared the weight of being a mother and student. She’d often lament the toll of abandoning her children to follow her dreams. Claire shared her personal struggles with her neurodivergence and how she found media narratives about autism tokenistic. You shared the pressure of coming from a family of overachievers.

Your friends believed in you, and for some time you believed in yourself. After every lecture, you went to the library to read on and around the topics you were taught, and afterwards you’d share your notes with your friends. School wasn’t easy, but your doubts and fears were abated once you felt a sense of belonging.

Summer arrived with warmth and sunlight, which transformed the otherwise grey and dull city. This was the closest London ever felt like home. By now, you were used to the rhythms of the city—you knew where to buy ingredients to make your favourite Nigerian meals. Google Maps became your best friend. You knew what time to leave to avoid rush hour. You saved money by purchasing a matcha latte kit. Sometimes in the quiet of your room, you smiled at yourself in the mirror because you had become a Londoner.

Whilst exams and finals were your priority, your lovely gang of girlfriends insisted you should explore the city beyond the library. Claire wrote a list of to-dos for you: go to an open-air play, attend a musical, visit a food market and walk through a park. Pimchan said you deserved these things. A little rest and relaxation were essential. You lied and promised them you’d take rest seriously, but it was impossible for you to relax. You needed the time to study. Any deviation from this would lead to failure. Whilst the gang explored London, you lived in the library. The only recreational activity you engaged in was a single trip to Regent’s Park.

It was the day after your last exam, and you craved fresh air. When you arrived, you were instantly filled with regret that you hadn’t come sooner. You revelled in the wide-open space. You loved the flowers, the large pond with ducks and elegant swans, and the freedom to just be. The trees took away your anxieties—or at the very least, quietened them. You used the day to buy overpriced but luxurious ice cream and people-watch—there was a couple kissing on the grass, a troupe of joggers, a different couple cooing at their baby, and a group of friends on a picnic blanket with plastic wine cups and an assortment of baked goods. It felt like there was a force field around the different groups of people. They belonged in a way you never would, so you returned to your apartment and continued studying.

Nine months sped by and transformed you into a graduate with distinction. Your family was proud, but deep down, you were terrified. Without the safety of school or being a student. You had to make your way and prove yourself yet again. You first found a part-time job in your local library. It was perfect. The work was minimal and straightforward, which gave you time to job-hunt. Before graduation, you perfected your CV at the careers office. You predicted you’d have a job in three months. On most days, you filled out five to seven job applications. Weeks turned to months. Time was running out. Your post-graduate work visa would expire, and you needed security. You attended ten interviews that asked about your work status, then rejected you.

You read the news. The economy was in deep stagnation, and there were mostly service jobs available. Despite your achievements and the economic realities in England, you had blamed yourself. You struggled to stay in touch with Claire, Pimchan and Paulette. You were ashamed. This was not the immigrant experience you’d planned for.

There were immigrants you had heard of, people like Kosekwu, whose church raised funds for him to pay for his master’s degree at Croydon University, a far less prestigious institution than yours, yet in less than five years, he was a senior executive at Facebook. There was also Otobong, who’d successfully applied for asylum in the United Kingdom, he’d arrived on the shores of Dover with less than nothing, found a job at an Amazon warehouse, and years later became a Booker Prize award-winning author. There were countless stories of immigrant nurses, care workers and doctors who literally saved the lives of British people every day. Yet, you couldn’t find a proper job. You had a good degree, but you couldn’t make anything of yourself. You were a failed immigrant. You couldn’t even return to Nigeria before your visa expired.

To return.
To return with nothing.
To return with nothing felt like death.

You tried to fight your defeat, but shame imprisoned you. Pimchan called and texted, but you blocked her because you were drowning. You considered applying for asylum, but you’d first have to prove persecution. There was certainly a form of silent judgement from your family which made you feel persecuted, but this wouldn’t be accepted by the Home Office, or any country for that matter.

You had a friend in Lagos who had once told you about someone she knew who arranged sham marriages for a small fortune. This was feasible, but there were too many risks. You’d heard of fake husbands extorting their so-called wives and exploiting their desperation.

Another option was going rogue. Do odd jobs here and there. Cash-in-hand jobs. There was an entire economy dedicated to such work, but as a woman you knew you were too vulnerable. You imagined unsavoury bosses taking advantage of undocumented workers, withholding wages, and for women, the threat of sexual coercion was too great.

The only viable outcome was to return home, but this could not be done in haste. Visa deadline or not, you needed time to craft the right words to say. The journey home was far from simply booking a flight ticket. You could do that, but first, you had to have money in your account to pay for the ticket. Therefore, to return home involved a compulsory call to your father to request money, and you were not quite ready to admit to him that you had failed. You felt his shame. Your family’s shame. It welded you to your bed. Every time you wanted to call him, you fantasised about what your British sojourn could have been. London was meant to be the place you could evolve into someone else. A place to transform. You had hoped you left all your flaws in Lagos, but they were in your suitcases. They lay dormant until you failed. You couldn’t avoid them. They told you that your time in London was an ill-informed escape from the reality of how inadequate you had always been. According to them, your decision to move to London was rooted in immaturity and pure fantasy.

In the safety of your bed, your voices whispered sometimes. They knew the harshness of the world and wanted to keep you safe from harm beyond your control. They saw each and every one of your inevitable failures and wished they never happened to you. They guided you into stillness and isolation, not as a result of cruelty, but to guard you from those that could never understand or value you. They told you to rest and luxuriate in the safety of the sheets above and beneath you. They had never urged you to take your life but would happily allow you to voluntarily enter a self-induced coma for eternity. They knew what you faced was crushing your spirit, so they tried to keep you immobile. Yet, you saw flashes of immigration police crashing through your door, handcuffing you and forcing you onto a plane. You knew you had to leave soon, and it was only a matter of time, but you were so very tired. Tired of defeat, tired of failure, and tired of you.

So, you stayed in the soft stillness of your bed. As you drifted into the sweet renewal that sleep promised, you told yourself, when you woke up, you’d shower, order some food then call your dad, but first, sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Johnathan Kaufman on Unsplash