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At [suggest time] a whole host [specify number] of people arrive, on foot, at the border between [designate location from] and [designate location to]. Approaching down a road that is squeezed out from between two hills they gratefully spread out as it widens and forms a corral in front of the gates strung out across the road; the flags of every nation that anyone knows about on earth, flutter, one at the entrance to each gate.

The head guard is dragged away from his card game: he wishes for something else, he wishes he were at home with his new pool table; he’d had to knock the wall down between his lounge and his dining room in order to be able to cue satisfactorily. The other guards though remain seated, their hands in their hands: one of them holds a flush and the other two a pair each. Their first question, which they ask amongst themselves, is: . . .

But the question isn’t important, and besides we can’t hear it because we follow the guard who is out of earshot by now: all that can be heard is an anticipatory murmur coming out of the crowd. He thinks: I should have brought my cards with me because they’re forced to look at them, as he makes his way up to the platform above the gates and walks to a central point where he can get a better view of the masses below.

The murmur now is the acknowledgement of his appearance, and as it passes from one part of the crowd to another it leaves silence in its wake. Eager faces turn up to look at him. 

By now we all know how it works: He addresses the throng and then they are allowed a moment to look up at the flags and imagine a new life in a different part of the world. Before the guard finally shouts R-u-n-a-r-o-u-n-d. . . . NOW!

When the clock has run down the rules state that everyone should be standing in front of the gate of their choice; the queues snake back into the mouth of the valley behind them. Those that have chosen the country that is open for business are herded through the gate and onto trucks that will take them to a second holding pen where they will remain until they can be properly integrated; the rest are turned back.

[Glen Neath © 2005]