Sometimes Easy / Sometimes Hard

By Hamid Jokarmalekadi (FS Level 1)

It was dark, dismal, and damp. The silence shouted fear. A mild breeze played a symphony

of hell and death with the fingers of branches and leaves. Just now, the sun had hidden

under her black blanket and thrown a dark shadow over us. A group of nine figures, hidden

under the bushes, huddled together with a definite distance between them, representing

their mistrust of each other. Their gazes were fixed on the ground, and their eyes barely met.

At the end of May, fear, fatigue, and frustration from hunger and thirst had frozen and

weakened their bodies and minds. It seemed spring had given birth to winter. Sitting among

them, I could see they were fearfully waiting for the next undefinable life’s mystery. A

disappointed sigh broke the silence. Some heads raised slightly to glance at the source of

the sigh and then went back between their knees again.

A minute later, the rustling footsteps of someone approaching stirred excitement in the

group. Steel bodies shifted, necks straightened, fear drained the colour from their faces,

hearts raced to break free from their chests, and some eyes turned to others, worriedly

seeking hope in the next deadly scenario of life on the stage of the Calais Forest. Parting the

thick bushes, a man in black appeared like a shadow, his face covered, and a knife in his

right hand. Simultaneously, a girl, fearful, wanted to stand up and stay back, but the grasp of

the bushes pushed her forward. With his left hand pressed to his ear, indicating he was

wearing hands-free and speaking in a language I didn’t understand, he began counting us.

He then gestured for us to come out of the bushes. Under the pale moonlight, I could see the

others clearly. There were nine of us—five men and four women.

Every birth brings death into the world. It had its hands on our throats and screamed through

our eyes. We emerged from the bush one by one, slowly and hesitantly, looking left and

right. Our gazes scratched through the darkness, scrambling through bushes and trees until

they were all swallowed by the darkness.

He urged us angrily to hurry and follow him. After about fifteen minutes of walking between

trees and bushes, and then struggling over sand dunes, we reached a group of nine people

who had been waiting for us behind one of the dunes. It was approximately a mile from the

sea.

The group had prepared a boat—a black and red, medium-sized inflatable one, suitable to

carry fourteen people. Spotting the smugglers among the others was easy; they were

standing out like a sore thumb, their faces were covered, and they were dressed in black. They ordered us to carry the boat, and three of us had to take the boat’s engine.

Carrying the boat and the engine for about half a mile, we arrived at the seashore. I was at

the front of the group hauling the boat, the smuggler’s harsh command echoing in my ears:

‘Hurry up, quick!’ With a round, heavy burden on my shoulders, walking up and down the

dunes was a bear of a task. Stepping into the soft sand, it sank around my ankles, filling my

shoes with grit, just like the weight of fear and doubt that sank deeper with every step,

dragging me into every moment of my life. My shoes filled with sand, while my heart

overflowed with a whirlwind of strange feelings, fighting against the mass on my shoulder

and the crushing volume of grief in my chest.

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Sometimes easy, sometimes hard,

Depends on the figures of Tarot cards.

Life is a locked box of mystery,

The key is time, stitching it to history.

Float on a wind like a feather,

Sorrow doesn’t last forever.

It won’t always be night.

Trust in the Almighty, the only one who can write.

A few minutes later, the sea welcomed us with the gentle lapping of the waves against the

seashore. There, the sand was solid, and the beach grew harder to step on. We set the boat

down and waited for the other three, who were struggling to carry the heavy engine and

walking about a hundred yards behind us. Then the smugglers told us to push the boat into

the sea. About fifty yards from the shore, when the water reached waist height, they

attached the engine to the boat. One of them climbed onto the boat and helped the girls get

on first. Then he switched on the engine while we were waiting around the boat for the next

command. He briefly, with poor English and a heavy accent, explained how to operate the

engine—how to switch it on and off, and how to shift between forward and reverse gears.

He also pointed to a tiny red light in the distance and told us to steer the boat toward it. We

pushed the boat until the water was above our chests. Meanwhile, he grabbed some

people’s hands and pulled them into the boat. Five or six people were inside when he dived

into the sea, disappeared beneath the surface, and then emerged on the other side, waving

at us. The water was nearly up to my neck, and I had held onto the boat’s body. Hanging onto

the boat while my toes were brushing the bottom of the sea, I was fighting for my life. It

wasn’t my first time, and I knew it wouldn’t be my last time. Then, someone grabbed the back of

my t-shirt and pulled me in. The first thing I remember after getting onto the boat was the

vroom of the engine.

The boat was cramped with people, and I squeezed myself between them. Someone sitting

near the engine began fiddling with it to get it running, and he succeeded. In a small boat

dancing on the waves, moving far from the shore, eighteen people embarked on their

adventure in the darkness of the night. The engine’s roar shattered the silence as the boat

cut through the waves. Someone at the front of the boat pointed to the red light on our right

side. None of us were sailors, and nobody had a clue how it worked. After spinning around

aimlessly and with some trial and error, we finally managed to head in the right direction.

Drifting on the sea and moving farther from the shore, we were gently consumed by the

darkness.

Life is not always kind; it is a strict teacher. We learn through experience, and not all

experiences are pleasant. Fear exists, hidden within us, waiting for a moment to emerge. If

human beings seek power, overcoming fear is the first step. We don’t gain patience until we

face disasters and challenges, with no way to escape. Only then must we fight. Fighting with

our inner selves is the hardest battle. The key to the treasure of wisdom lies in problems. The 3 | P a g e

more challenges you face in life, the more you must find ways to solve them. Through it all,

we can either be proud of ourselves or ashamed.

After about three to four hours of travelling toward the red light, the waves were more

aggressive, angrily attacking and clawing at the inflatable boat to sink it. Water inside the

boat rose above our ankles. The fears increased, and prayers started. The waves were about

half a metre, and the sailor couldn’t manage to control the boat.

About half an hour later, the water was nearly to the knees. Prayers turned into crying and

screaming. The more we were begging helplessly, hopelessly and horrifically to save our

lives, the more relentlessly, roughly and recklessly the sea behaved to take them.

Suddenly, the engine stopped working. The only hope was hearing the vroom sound of the

engine that had been gone through the darkness. All the screaming and moaning stopped

for a moment. Silence penetrated deeply into the bones. The eyes targeted the sailors,

bombarding them with hundreds of questions. Imaginations were depicting the depth of the

sea. Fear had frozen the bodies. Someone’s stammering ‘www_aaa_t hh_aa_ pen?’ broke

the hash. The shouts for help increased, and the motion started again in the boat.

The sailor and two others tried to run the engine again. I joined them as well. There is a flat

wooden part at the back of the boat where you can mount an outboard engine on inflatable

boats, which is called the transom. I noticed water floating over the transom. My fear

increased, but I had to decide to do something to save our lives. The waves were still high,

fighting to sink the boat. The only reason we managed to survive was the air trapped inside,

keeping us floating on the water’s surface like a balloon, even though it was full of water. I

signalled to the guys to move to the front of the boat. As they did, the back of the boat

became lighter, and consequently, the back and the transom lifted out of the water. We used

our hands and a person’s cap to try to remove the water. It worked. We had managed to

clear the water out, sparking a little hope. Then we worked on the engine. With some effort,

the engine started, but when we tried to shift it into gear, it didn’t move. We tried several

times, but we were beating a dead horse.

I noticed a scarf floating behind the boat. I grabbed it and pulled, but it seemed to be

attached to something underwater. I chased after it but couldn’t reach the end of the scarf.

Asking someone to grab my t-shirt and legs, I stretched more and went upside down

underwater. Then I realised the scarf was twisted around the propeller -the rotating device

with angled blades that push against the water to move the boat forward and backwards.

I had reached it, but I couldn’t release it. After coming up, I tried putting the engine in

reverse, and someone pulled on the scarf, finally freeing it.

Struggling to get the engine running had caused the sea to batter us again, and water was

back in the boat. But the passengers had learned how to manage it. We had overcome the challenges and begun our unknown journey once again. Unfortunately, we had lost sight of the red light, which was our only guide. A large cruise ship was approaching from a distance, sailing directly toward us. We managed to steer the boat toward them to seek help. As the cruise ship came closer, we realised the waves surrounding it were so strong that they could even flip our boat upside down. We had reluctantly decided to rely on human beings to accomplish what the sea and nature hadn’t been able to do. The sailor quickly changed the boat’s direction to drift far from the cruise

ship. After drifting farther away, someone delightedly and repeatedly shouted, “The red light.

The red light.”

Peeking over the horizon, the sun curiously, cautiously, and calmly threw her light across the

sky and sea surface, seeking our destination. Tired from the night’s battle, or shamed by the

touch of morning light, the waves were quieter, calmer and kinder in the morning.

As the waves moved us up and down, a faint outline of land emerged. White cliffs rise

behind the gentle waves. It seemed everyone had seen the cliffs at the same time when a

quiet sparkle of relief enlightened the hearts, and some eyes welled up with tears of

happiness, and a smile blossomed on the faces.

Life is an ocean. Today is turbulent, tomorrow calm. Time is a river, which dissolves in the

ocean. Today sadness, tomorrow happiness. So entangled with each other in a way you

can’t decide one from the other. The lesson is that both circulating and nothing is fixed or

absolute. Everything is passing and moving. A wise man doesn’t stick to happiness and

doesn’t cling to sadness, since neither of them is stable nor everlasting. Everything that

doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

A large Coast Guard patrol approached, with the UK flag flying from the deck. After switching

off the engine, they let the boat slide slowly alongside ours while speaking over the speaker.

With a long stick, they pulled our boat toward theirs, assisting us in transferring from one to

the other. Sitting in a position with our wet bodies and clothes made our bodies and bones

feel stiff as sticks. Everyone struggled to climb the ladder and make their way up to the

Coast Guard boat, where they were all given a blanket. About two hours later, we arrived at

the port. Climbing up a long staircase, we stepped onto UK soil.

It was a new start, from nothing. The only belongings I had were the clothes I was wearing.

As I went to do biometrics, introduce myself, undergo blood tests, and have my photo taken,

I realised life had welcomed me to a new challenge. We were given some clothes to change

into before a brief interview in a cold, glass-walled room. And then my first day started…

Staying in detention for two nights, transferring to a hotel in London for fifty days, then

relocating to Folkestone Camp for about six months, living in isolation for fifty days during

the pandemic, travelling from Folkestone to London, then to Birmingham, and finally to

Manchester and Stockport—these are the stories I’ll share with you in the future.

Life is a journey, and every journey has a purpose. We won’t complete our mission unless

we fulfil that purpose. Each of us plays a unique role in completing the puzzle, and just like

fingerprints, our duties are exclusive. We are given enough time and opportunity to do what

we are meant to do.