Amir stood outside the shop turning his umbrella at the same speed at the rotisserie trundling slowly inside. Puddles of purple, blue and gold reflected the bright lights inside the shop fronts and the “People Make Glasgow” flags flying from lampposts.
He’d come to Scotland as a refugee and been welcomed by charities and churches once he was given leave to remain and was allowed to leave the detention centre and work.
He’d been a doctor back home but here he got on his borrowed bike and delivered hot food when the orders came through. Pick up drivers were only allowed inside when they were actually picking up so standing in Scottish pelters was becoming a habit. But, with orders and tips he was doing okay. He stayed in a flat with other men, too many men. They all worked all the hours they could get hoping to be able to move on. He needed to improve his English. He couldn’t work in medicine here until he could understand the complexities of symptoms in this strange new language enough to pass the competency test. He was used to Arabic and Hebrew, all he had thought he would ever need and, of course many of his textbooks and lectures had been in English but how people spoke here was very different to the precise clipped tones of his professors. His ears hadn’t tuned in to glottal stops and rolling rrrs yet, never mind all the rest.
Economic migrants some thought they were but he’d earned great money, had a palace by comparison to what he had now, before the war. The war had killed many in his family and destroyed his home – all the homes. There was little in his country left. Nothing to draw him back.
So, he stands in purple puddles dreaming of being more while waiting for his next order.
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