Laura Mega, “The Maggots

The Maggots (A True Story)

Laura Mega

You will expect this story to start out with, “Once upon a time,” but I don’t want to delude you into thinking this is some kind of fairy tale with a happy ending. So instead, I will say, “The time is right now.” The right time for actions, the right time to feel and give up on the stone you may have buried in the hope of finding it again. As far as I was concerned, I thought it was my time, but it turned out I was with the wrong human beings in the wrong place. That’s what they wanted me to believe with their god-like verdict, anyway. The one that rained down on me from above as they delivered their, “No” and “Try again in some other costly way” non-assurances. Oh to be on that callous perch of a consulate, where the only thing the bureaucrats can seem to feel is hunger. What they can’t feel is your hunger, your insane, crazed desire to get the hell out of the country you’ve been banished to. Have you ever wanted something so badly, you could practically taste the rabidity of the ambition in your mouth? My ambition was to live inside of an apple. Not just any apple, but a shiny, pristine, crisp one. To me, the apple of my mind’s eye was so enormous that you would have to jump in, like Jeannie into her bottle, and walk around it to fully appreciate all of its beauty. But after eleven years, I finally saw a part of the apple I hadn’t noticed before. A place at the center where it was beginning to rot. This rotted part was like the true main entrance, the gate of anti-hope where all fears become real, and all dreams just childish whimsy. In fairy tales, there is usually some sort of spell or cute little rhyme you can recite by the end to get you out of your bind. This is what Immigration preys upon. Except instead of simply giving you the magic words that will get you back to your unpoisoned apple, they insist that you pay for them. And that maybe, if you pay enough, you might be able to return. To restore order to your now unrecognizable life. They fooled me so well as to make me jump through all their hoops like a breakdancer on the subway hoping to impress the amused white folk tourists. And when I jumped through them all, they said the moment that my aching feet hit the ground, “You’re denied. You’re not fit to return. You must tell the apple you cannot see it again.” Not even to get the stone—the one that held the key to my heart in it. But then, they said, “Wait, we might be able to work something out for you. Do you have any more shiny gold coins to give us?” Reluctant, I gave them my last alms, the last tokens I might have used to at least escape to a different fruit instead of being stuck in the outer regions of a broken basket. Then, it all became so clear the moment I handed over the last of it: “So you’re saying you will always have magic numbers to offer me a place to wait in line to get back inside...so long as I give you money? Even if you know already my dream will never become real?” They did not answer, but they didn’t need to. I could see them for what they were: false magicians strengthening their power by sucking up people’s dreams. They were the compassionless maggots eating up the apple I could once call home. They evicted me once and for all, not by consuming the apple, but by dangling it and their bodies in it in front of me for an eternity spent watching from the bottom of the basket, likely woven by an immigrant. 33.