What’s your dream job?

Well, I think writing is pretty darn dreamy. But if I were to do something else I’d be in a rock band.

Really?

You sound surprised.

I just didn’t expect that answer from someone of your cultural background.

If I had a choice of rock bands I’d be with AC/DC playing a tambourine alongside Angus Young. Does that sound more like what you expected?

In our apartment life was a rotten potato lost between the fridge and the counter. No matter where you went, the stink followed. But at Dad’s, excitement and novelty made our troubles invisible. My step-mother proved a riveting distraction, a mischievous sprite out to grab your soul. I understood why Roxy shot down the stairs like an arrow every time Dad came to pick us up, but I was still avoiding his house as much as possible.

The waiting room of the Côte D’Or préfecture de police has but one open seat.It’s beside a mustached older man in a knit cap holding a green passport.Around the intimate space of plastic chairs arranged to allow for the minimum amount of leg room, I see other green passports along with various shades of red.Mine appears to be the only blue.  I don’t get the sense that any one member of this colorful international coalition desperately wants to obtain the brown passport emblazoned with the words République française.But this is what has brought us together.

We are not expectant, we’re resigned.Whether we think procuring the right to stay in this country is just a matter of procedure or whether we assume it’s almost pointless to try, we wait for our number to be called.I’ve torn “46” from the machine at the door.I sit down with it and my own renewed doubt about my prospects here today.