She browsed Facebook, looking at the happy faces in her colleagues’ pictures. They had, once more, gone out without asking her. She Liked a photo or two, but she dared not Comment. How could she? She spoke a language that they barely understood, and they spoke a language that she was barely conversant in.
She came to this land by the skin of her teeth, passing all aptitude and language tests through the sheer force of memorisation. After all, that was the founding principles of education in her land – rote repetition and intensely committing facts to her memory.
It was when she came to this land that she learnt about the wonders of Facebook, and how it was at once both a curse and a blessing. A blessing, because she could learn so much more about her colleagues than she would in an awkward conversation with them. A curse, because she realised just how little she knew and just how much of an outsider she was.
She would hear hushed whispers and stolen glances at her, and it took all of her resolve not to be overwhelmed by paranoia. She would try to sneak glances on her colleagues’ computers – she swore that she saw her name there once or twice, but she was barely conversant in the language – how could she possibly be certain that it was her name? She thought a slur had been casually thrown in her direction once, but then, without any competency in the language, she wouldn’t be sure.
So she put her heart and mind into her work. Her gender was rare in her field of IT, and her job hardly gave her any interaction with the outside world. But she was determined to do the best that she could. Even that garnered her some derisive remarks, but she didn’t know what a “brown nose” or a “suck up” was, and she didn’t know how to spell it, so what was she to do but read the nonverbal cues that her colleagues sent?
And slowly, slowly, she changed. From a shy farm girl to a ruthlessly pragmatic woman. She would barge her way into meetings to get what she wanted, backstab her way into authority, and redirect work to hide her incompetency at the language, to show the boss that she was capable, and to ease the aching solitude of her heart.
She had come to this land for a better life, and she had it. She had an iPhone – something that would not have been possible in her land (well, not an original iPhone at least, she consoled herself). She had make up – something she would barely have been able to afford if she were back in her homeland. She had a husband – no man would have wanted someone as tainted as she was, and she was glad her whorish history was no longer an issue in this land.
She came here for a better life, and she got it, right? She had it all. She was the envy of all her friends back in her hometown. The pride of her parents and her family. The shining example that all her villagers aspired to. If only she had a friend, but then she didn’t mind sacrificing that.
She browsed her colleagues photos, then gave up. She would never be part of their lives.
She deleted all traces of her search, then logged out of her colleagues’ Facebook accounts.
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