12.
You and your son stay in the processing centre for 4 years. You don’t see each other until the day you are told that you are being settled in Australia on ‘Temporary Protection Visas’, which will be in force for an initially undefined time, after which you will be flown back to your own country, unless you can prove that your lives will still be in danger there.
You meet your son and he doesn’t remember you. He has lost all sense of worth and self, he can’t remember his name, only his number and the nickname the guard and the guard’s mates, who he was forced to share a bed with for 4 years, have for him. He has had no schooling.
You settle in a strange town in a new country where you speak very little of the language. You are dumped in a small unkempt rental apartment with no furniture and not enough money to eat properly each week, or stay warm. Your neighbours are hostile.
You are not allowed to work, though you have valuable skills. You feel your skills disappearing from your grasp and you sink into a deeper depression than any you have yet experienced.
You start sending your son to school and you visit the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre for help with English, for food and for companionship. Each time you make your way to the centre you are abused en-route by an Australian citizen or by an UK citizen who has been trying for Australian citizenship for some time.
You are bored without anything productive you can do with your time, and always the fear is weighing on you that any day you could receive a letter from the government telling you that you are being deported back to your own country, which you understand full-well is still under zombie control. (Go to 13)