We store the illegals here by the dam, so thick we can walk on their heads. Sometimes we do. Not kids, not grandmothers, not if we can help it the women. We photograph them with facial recognition cameras, and once they’ve been digitized, computerized, and disseminated, we ship them out. Then we gather before the dam, all of us standing where they were, awaiting the next batch, facing that concrete concave rising fan.
It takes a long time for them to come, squeezing us up and out, but eventually it happens, more of them than us, and us, lighter and whiter, standing on top of that sea of bobbing brown heads. No matter how light your touch is, how swiftly you move, you feel them sink beneath you when you step, and you wonder, How can they stand it? Strong necks, I suppose, and the weight of those around them, holding them up.
Good thing for them there’s a lot of them; it would be too much to bear alone. But the brown river fills up and moves on and is gone.
It takes a long time for them to come, squeezing us up and out, but eventually it happens, more of them than us, and us, lighter and whiter, standing on top of that sea of bobbing brown heads. No matter how light your touch is, how swiftly you move, you feel them sink beneath you when you step, and you wonder, How can they stand it? Strong necks, I suppose, and the weight of those around them, holding them up.
Good thing for them there’s a lot of them; it would be too much to bear alone. But the brown river fills up and moves on and is gone.
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Paul Griner
Cloud Atlas
David Mitchell
David Mitchell