Last year,
to mention just one example,
a boat carrying refugees died of a heart attack.
When the first rescue ship arrived,
the Mediterranean Sea had drowned.
They found the water gasping for breath,
the wave soaked through
and the European Union
trying to hang on to a piece of wreckage
from the boat
in order to survive.
They didn’t find the children.
Preliminary results of the investigation
clearly indicated that satellite images showed
the sunken boat
didn’t know how to swim.
On the eight o’clock news that evening,
as the waters of the Mediterranean Sea
flowed gently from the television
on the parquet floors of sitting rooms,
upsetting happy families in safe countries
and causing a minor disturbance to the sexual performance
of the silent majority in central and northern Europe
suddenly,
like mushrooms popping up in the woods,
a middle-class European woman,
asked why they’d come by sea
and not by air after getting visas.
Overwhelmed by this white innocence,
the television committed suicide.
Commenting on the tragic incident by phone,
the integration officer from the Department of Immigration said,
what shall we do now?