“Why do you want to travel to the United States?”

Frightened, I winced at the man looking at me through the opening in the glass cubicle, tightening my grip on my passport. His bulging, hazel eyes peeked from underneath the two thick rounds of glass perched on his nose. Below, his long, dark, dirt-shaded mustache curled up, framing the profile of his frail cheek. His skin, patched with scars, sagged under his chin, sucking out all life in him, unmasking a phantom.

My palms drenched in sweat, the hair on the nape of my neck taut, and my forehead pulsing, I gazed at him, petrified. Could I even comprehend his words? Or was it his accent? I opened my mouth, fumbling for air, hoping to divulge what little I could understand. I gulped, struggling to dislodge a whisper, amidst a crowd of thousands, feeling those behind me staring with disgust.

“Miss? How long will you be visiting for?”

Swallowing my reservations, I unveiled my passport from my hand, dropping it on the counter, while rummaging in my purse for my itinerary. My eyes were floating in tears as I looked up to him. How do I respond to him? Instinctively, I pointed to the visa imprinted on my passport. Hopefully, I won’t have to speak to him.

He prodded my hand with my passport.

Startled, I glanced at him. I feigned confidence. In the next few seconds, I will have to speak.

“Why do you want to travel to the United States?”

By the time I collected myself, he was intently perusing me, furrowing his brows menacingly. Silence permeated the waiting room abruptly. I bit my lip, obsequiously fabricating responses in my mind. If I am not able to speak to someone in English now, how will I ever learn? Hurriedly, I embraced myself to utter two words.

“To study,” I mumbled.

He smiled in recompense and returned my passport. I swiftly seized it and shuffled out of the cubicle, my heart racing. This novelty was inevitable. In a foreign land, 8000 miles away from home, I was submerged in an alienating ambience. What my father had described to me as ethereal bliss was a hoax. With no sign of sanguity on the faces of the mindless walking bodies that populated the airport, I realized I had entered my doom. And there was no going back. No feeling in place again.

. . .

Seven years prior, 8000 miles away, my father had sauntered into a dark, enclosed space in our two-story penthouse in New Delhi, where I lay, immersed in thought about how drastically my life would change within the next 24 hours.

“It’s tomorrow.” He had gazed at me coaxingly, intending to kindle my hopes for the future. A new beginning in a foreign town amidst acres of cornfields with allegedly gelid winters: Chicago.“We must talk”

For a ten year old, this was disheartening. Having lived my entire life with two grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins under one roof, the thought of leaving vividness for a barren bewildered, even intimidated me. Years of friendship. A lifetime of relationships. A bond of culture.

Destroyed.

. . .

I close my eyes.

I remember myself walking inside the bleak halls of my middle school for the first time, struggling to find my classroom, hoping to discover the truth about spoiled and snobbish American ten-year olds.

“Hi! What’s your name?”

I remember a girl in the crimson tank approaching me after I didn’t reply to her. I remember her frowning at my peculiar behavior. Recognizing no one in a crowd tensed me, for I could not speak to them. They will not understand me. I will not understand them.

“Can you even speak?” “Are you even a little smart?”

“Uh…h..hh hi.” The words barely left me.

“No, she’s in ELL. Don’t talk to her.” The boy in the navy blue t-shirt had stated with remarkable contempt, blurring the little confidence and hope I had left in me.

I remember walking through the classroom every morning since then without having someone to laugh or cry with, realizing I would never make it through high school. I will always mean nothing to them.

I shudder.

          . . .

When I open my eyes, I find myself gaping at the papers in my hand. Peaking them is a glistening piece of cardstock with engraved letters robed in a crimson envelope. I run my fingers over the delicate calligraphy and the obsolete embellishments around the ornamented title on the front, appraising it carefully for every word, every space.  

I smile to myself in contentment. Absorbed by the crowds of exhilarated parents in the audience embracing their children, chanting their names, my eyes begin swimming in water. After seven years, the flower of hard work I had been effortfully watering has bloomed into my success.  

For all I know, I subsist on persistence.