The Tourist

1. Write about someone who’s trying to accomplish a task that used to be easy but is now made complicated by a pandemic.

Now, getting a visa to another country is not exactly ‘easy’ at best, but it is usually pretty straight forward. Fill out some forms, pay a chunk of money, wait an eternity, and...voila! Over the years, Claire had filed for dozens of them, paid thousands of dollars, and had a fair share of rejections as well. She was pretty savvy at it. Things had changed over the years; papers had been replaced with online in only the last year and a half, her visas predated biometrics and had replaced all the British Consulate offices she went looking for. Still, there was always Croydon; the headquarters for the Home Office in London. It was a physical place that, worse came to worse, she could go there and wait a day for help. Yes, pretty straight-forward...until the pandemic came! 

Claire had been given full settlement in the UK many years before, although that passport was lost, the rights still existed. She had strong ties there and had spent many years of her life traveling, doing business or living there. She hated jumping through the hoops of bureaucracy, but just like her Leo personality, a lion could jump through hoops both on fire and underwater at the same time...they just don’t like it very much! She liked a challenge, and could always find a way to go around/through/over it. So, after a trip to the UK in Sept 2019, she ended up meeting the love of her life in November, and decided this time, this was where she would settle. For good. She had the rights, just needed to segue for this new visa. 

So, Claire was set to return to the States and sort out her visa there, as one usually does in their home country. But she got sick; really sick. Deathly sick. She even went to the airport and simply could not breathe/talk/walk and was exhausted. They were going to board her at that point, not knowing what was to come. She recovered, mostly, so then she contacted an immigration solicitor in February. She was given some advice; as to whether it was good or not, who knows. First, she was told to do an ancestry visa, so Claire took the time to take a class at the library, and did research. The thing is, they were her great-grandparents' names on that boat's itinerary, coming from England and Scotland...not her grandparents. So, whilst it was interesting, it didn’t help. The she suggested an indefinite leave to remain based on private life, since Claire had spent so much of her life in the UK and had many ties. The only thing is, the solicitor didn’t take into consideration that Claire had a permanent visa, and this one was only good for 2 ½ years, so essentially a temporary one. Claire certainly would have not known that, as one has to be some kind of genius, pedantic pencil-pusher to know all about immigration. So, she trusted that was the right avenue, although her gut never felt good about it. 

Then the pandemic happened! In mid-March of 2020, as we know it, there was a lockdown in the UK and most of the world for that matter. All Claire could do was wait it out. At least she had her love, although they lived separate. Oh, and he was in NO hurry to get married or commit again! So, she had her life savings, which was meant to last six months or so, but not a lifetime. She had only moved to a new flat days before, costing her a chunk of those savings. She had not even gotten all the utilities set up, and now, with lockdown, couldn’t reach anyone to do it. So, she didn’t have wifi...she didn’t have it at her other home, either...why bother? She had a great connection at work [which was now closed], and used the wifi at pubs for social times and the library for research. So, now seemingly simple things like setting up broadband or a new bank account, were impossible. Again, she was only meant to be here six months or less, so temporary, but had to fling herself headlong into permanent, with office and services closed. Even trying to reach her family in the States; she would draft an email, squat outside the village library and try to get a beam of WiFi to send it and let people know she was still alive! Same with trying to set up benefits, there was no way to reach anyone, so trying for hours until her legs were numb from being on the concrete to get a bit of WiFi. This went on for months! When she was at her partners, she used his WiFi, but during the course of time, she burned through several devices because she had too much to download.

The main aspect was the visa; Claire spent 40-80 hours a week, working on that and her survival. She always carried a good 8” of documents with her to prove anything over the last 23 years of this being her second home, and had all emails saved and ready at the touch of a mouse. But, as red tape does, there is always something else they need. Something else they want. Normally, this is easy; you print something and hand it to someone, right? Now with offices closed, there was no place to print anything. She even begged her vicar to use her office, but that wasn’t allowed. So a simple task like copying documents, meant she had to ask her neighbors to take pictures of her tablet [which had no WiFi, but she could get to the right page by sitting outside the library] and for them at a social distance of 6’, take pictures of the information. Like recent bank statements she had to order from overseas; with no way to contact them over that this crude email system. The government had PROMISED people in Claire’s position they would be safe if they contacted them to extend their visas, told them they could swap their visas [a once in a lifetime chance] without leaving the UK, and lowered restrictions because of the extraordinary circumstances. Claire trusted this, even befriended someone at Home Office, and jumped over hurdles better than any Olympic athlete. 

Meantime, her relationship was growing stronger. He took her to her Life in the UK test, packing her cookies and coffee so she could study after he dropped her at the train station. He drove her to visa appointments, and gazed lovingly while she finally had access to a computer and a printer and made stacks of more evidence. Oh, this visa was going to be airtight, heartfelt, and accurate. She later did the biometrics, forfeiting her passport in October 2020. The pile of scanned documents sent in August came back in the Winter, but still no word. She even had to have her best friend in the States get a copy of Claire’s divorce, because they wanted that for some reason as well. With vital statistic offices closed, that was no easy feat, but the gal pals got it done. In November, they sent her the final documents to sign. She was staying at her partners house, working at her ancestral estate [which managed to be open for a minute then]. One of the papers was really straight-forward, for her partner to sign. But he delayed...he didn’t want to do it! Other men were jumping at the chance; everyone knows that when there is a visa, the partner signs, right? But no, he was still in some kind of state, could blame the pandemic, but they had just celebrated a year of dating the week before. Why? Claire was devastated...but he had this habit of pushing her away when they got close. 

Months passed as well as seasons. Things were great with her partner, they seemed to have weathered the storm. Grateful to have her, she was the only one that had entertained him during this pandemic. She made the effort to wear cute date outfits, cook lavish meals, set up entertainment like karaoke or movies. They seemed to be a great team. The week before, they both cleaned and detailed his car and he sold it; saying he would use some of the money to play the lottery so ‘we’ would be rich. They had a lovely weekend as they always did, her borrowing a chair so she could volunteer outside in the gardens as allowed. Then, on Sunday morning, she awoke to a strange note; something about her taking a cab and his family having a gathering. It wasn’t offensive, it just seemed odd after the closeness they just shared. 

On Monday night, after the usual silly texts and messages she sent him, he sent her one that said he was on a diet and that he wanted to ‘cool it’ for a while. His love was the reason she was doing this all; she longed for the closeness they spent every weekend, and it had been a year and a half by now. He had done this so many times, she handled it better by now. Then on Tuesday, she got it; the news from the Home Office. After praying for the hundredth time, she opened the email; REJECTED! Claire could do no more than crawl into bed and cried; the kind of sobs that came from her gut. All she could think of was this would devastate her partner, who was the one who would scatter her ashes when she was gone. Now the question remained; where might she be when that happened, after jumping through failed hoops for a year.