About me: 26, white male, dual citizenship (US/UK), frequent traveler. Been to over 100 countries, including some that very few tourists go to: Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan (before the Taliban takeover), etc. I’ve had my fair share of crazy experiences at border crossings, but my most bizarre—and frightening—experience was when I flew from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, BC last week to visit a friend for three days.
The trip started off normally enough. I didn’t have any luggage besides a backpack, so I was able to head directly to the immigration checkpoint. The line was moving fairly quickly, and after ten minutes I was called up by a man whose name tag identified him as Agent Harvey. He was a short fat man, doubt he was even five feet tall. He reeked of cheap cologne, and although he had barely any hair left, he must have dumped a gallon of hair gel on his scalp. I had a feeling he would be a pain in the ass.
“Hello, bonjour,” he said curtly.
“Hello, how are you doing?” I said as I handed him my passport and immigration card.
He scanned my passport and glared at me. “Why are you coming to Canada? Are you coming to work?”
“No, just to visit a friend for three days.”
“Is it a girl?”
“No, it’s a guy. We met at college.”
“Are you romantically involved with him?”
“No, just a friend.”
“Are you staying with him?”
I nodded.
“When I ask you a question, give me a verbal answer. Do you understand? It’s not very complicated.”
“Yep,” I said. It comes as a shock to many people, but Canadian border agents are some of the rudest in the world. However, this guy was on a whole new level.
“Where does your friend live?”
“Here.”
“Here? He lives in the Vancouver Airport? Is that what you are telling me? Do you think you are funny or something?”
I sighed, trying to keep my cool. “He lives in Vancouver. You knew exactly what I meant.”
He stared at my passport photo for several seconds, trying to think of a his next question. “Are you planning on working here?” he finally asked, apparently unable to come up with line of questioning.
“Nope, just here for three days,” I said for the second time.
“That’s not a very long time, is it?”
“It’s not, but I have to get back to work.”
“And what is it exactly that you do you do for a living?”
“I’m a software developer.”
“Are you planning on doing any work while in Canada?”
“Nope.”
“You don’t have any luggage with you?”
“Just my backpack. I’m only here for three days.”
“Yes, you’ve said that several times. You don’t need to repeat yourself.”
“And neither do you. You’ve asked me if I’m planning on working at least three times.”
“Put your backpack up on the table,” he growled.
I did and he went through it. Nothing in it besides some clothes, toiletries, and my personal laptop.
“You said you weren’t coming to work,” the agent said, “yet you have your laptop.”
“It’s a personal laptop.”
He handed me a sheet of blank paper. “Hand over your cell phone and write down the passwords to it and your laptop.”
“Why?”
“Because I do not believe your story. Now you will give me your electronic devices and their passwords, or they will be seized and you will be denied entry.”
I did so, not having any choice. There was nothing on them that would raise suspicions.
He set them aside and stared back at my passport. “Where are you from?” he asked.
“Portland.”
He smiled for the first time. “Your passport says that you were born in the UK.” Sherlock thought that he had discovered a hole in my story.
“Yeah, I was born in London but moved to the US when I was two.”
“Then why did you say you were from Portland?”
“Because I’ve lived in Oregon since I was two.”
“Do you have dual citizenship?”
I nodded.
“Are you deaf or something? Did you not hear me the first time when I requested a verbal answer?”
This was quickly getting out of hand. “Can we please get a supervisor?” I asked.
He sighed and muttered into his radio. A few minutes later, another agent, his name tag reading Nguyen, approached the desk.
“Does he have a criminal record?” Nguyen asked Harvey.
“No, but he is being very evasive, disrespectful, combative, and is giving inconsistent answers.”
“I’m not being evasive, I’m—“
“Sir, please do not speak unless spoken to,” Nguyen said. “Pack up your belongings, with the exception of your electronic devices, and follow me.”
I did, glad to be getting away from Agent Harvey. I followed Nguyen down a set of stairs and into a small room, empty save for a metal table and two chairs.
“I wasn’t being evasive or combative,” I said. “Harvey was just being a dick for no reason.”
Agent Nguyen didn’t respond, but began flipping through my passport. This was what I was worried about, what was in my passport could actually cause some delays. “You’re quite the traveler,” he said.
“Yeah, I just love to travel. Especially to remote, lesser-known destinations.”
“You have stamps from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. Those aren’t typical tourist destinations.”
I nodded. “Yeah, I know it seems suspicious, but I went to all those countries on guided tours. I can show you documentation on my laptop.” I’ve been through this line of questioning before.
“Please empty your pockets on the table. You’re not being arrested, just detained while we can perform some additional checks on your background.”
After being frisked, he led me out of the room, down another flight of stairs and down a long, dimly-lit corridor. He opened a door into a small holding cell. The only other occupant was a very strange elderly man. He looked like a cross between a Victorian detective and a hobo. He was dressed in a black suit, several sizes too big for him, a bright purple vest, several sizes too small for him, and a black bow tie. Even though it wasn’t that cold, he wore a long wool overcoat, full of holes, over his suit and had on a ratty tall black hat. He looked up hopefully at Nguyen, but received no acknowledgment from the agent.
“Stay here, sir,” Nguyen told me. “We’ll be back shortly.”
It was a windowless room, its only furniture a long metal bench. The overhead fluorescent lights were blindingly bright.
“Have you been here long?” I asked the elderly man.
If he understood English, he showed no sign of recognition. After a few minutes, he began singing in what I thought was Russian. He was truly an awful singer, sounded like a dying animal. I thought he would stop after a few minutes, but he went on and on. I asked him politely to stop, but he kept singing (if you could call his wailing singing) louder and louder. He soon got up and started dancing on the bench, waving his arms around madly. Then he started walking towards me, and I thought I might have to shove him away, but he stopped about a foot away from me and cackled madly before dancing off.
I banged at the door, hoping that someone would come and take away this madman, but no one did, and he kept singing and dancing like a lunatic, many times getting a few inches from my face before retreating. Honestly, if we weren’t a geriatric, I would have probably punched him in his face. Thankfully, after about an hour, an agent came and took him away.
I took off my sweatshirt, balled it up, and tried to sleep, but couldn’t. I didn’t think I’d be here for more than a few hours, I assumed that Canadians to confer with the US authorities and after they realized I wasn’t a terrorist or an arms trafficker would let me in. But it seemed like I was in there days. I had no watch, so I didn’t know exactly how long I was in there for, but I was definitely more than a few hours. I paced around the small room, counting my steps. Once I got to ten thousand, I tried to sleep again, but had no luck. Another ten thousand steps, another failed attempt at sleeping.
At this time, I was beginning to feel the need to piss. I banged on the door for probably close to thirty minutes, tried to yell, but received no answer. I wondered if they had forgotten that I was locked in here. My friend knew that I had landed and surely he was asking some questions right now—but how long would it be before the Canadian agents actually did something? Knowing them, it would probably be a while.
I gave up on trying to hold it. I went to a corner of the room and pissed against the wall. Would this be cause to deny me entry? At this point, I really didn’t care.
I banged on the doors, on the walls, but as before received no response. I tried to sleep again. Not long after I lay back down the fluorescent lights thankfully went out and I was in pitch blackness. I quickly fell asleep.
I woke up on a dusty street, lined by the concrete shells of bombed-out buildings. Far off in the distance, I could see the smoldering Vancouver skyline. A fire-red sun tried to peak through the hazy sky.
As is the case in dreams, I didn’t try to analyze my situation, didn’t try to rationalize it. My mind was a blur. I just walked down the street. It was littered with human bones, free of flesh, and the occasional tattered remains of uniforms. If these were soldiers, their weapons had been looted long ago.
I kept walking aimlessly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a mangy canine far off in the distance. It resembled a coyote but was far bigger—probably close to a hundred pounds. It looked at me and started charging. I picked up a femur bone from the ground, bracing myself for its attack. As it neared me, saliva dripping from its muzzle, I brought the femur down on its head. I didn’t hear any bone crack, but the beast whimpered and scampered off.
I continued walking, femur in hand, heading towards the distant Vancouver skyline. It didn’t seem to be getting any closer and I thought that I was passing the same burnt-out buildings again and again. The wind was blowing hard, hard enough to cover up any footprints, but I was certain that, even though I was seemingly walking in a straight line, I was going in circles. I picked up some bones and arranged them into a star. About fifteen minutes later, I saw that same star again.
I turned 90 degrees and started walking down a different street, a street also lined with bones, but this path also led back to the star of bones. I sat down and peered up at the sun. It hadn’t seemed to move since I got to this world.
As I was pondering my next move, I heard heavy footsteps coming from behind me. I jolted up, thinking the mangy coyote had returned. Instead, about fifty feet behind me, a giant of a man, probably 8 feet tall, stood. He was dressed in filthy overalls, cut off above the knees. His legs had been replaced by wooden pegs and he wore a black patch over his left eye. The giant’s left forearm was also missing, but instead of a prosthetic a curved blade was in its place.
Grasping the femur, I started running. I didn’t think that the giant would be able to move very fast, given his peg legs, but he was somehow gaining ground on me. I ducked into one of the bombed-out buildings, hoping to find a more substantial weapon than a femur.
The room I entered was devoid of furniture save for an old mahogany grandfather clock that was pushed up against one wall. While the floor was covered in a thick layer of dust, the grandfather clock was perfectly clean, looked like it had been waxed and polished just that morning. Unlike a normal clock, it was not numbered from 1 to 12, but instead had thirteen strange abstract symbols. Instead of two hands, it had seven, which were racing wildly around the clock’s face, some moving forwards, some backwards.
As I was staring transfixed at the clock, I saw a shadow fall across the room. I turned and saw the giant ducking into the doorway, grinning madly. I backed away, grasping the femur like a baseball bat. As he danced nimbly on his pegs towards me, I swung the femur at his head. It was a good, hard swing, but it had no effect on him, except for dislocating his eye patch. In his empty eye socket were dozens of tiny white worms, writhing about.
There was only one way into this room; I was trapped. The giant raised his blade-arm and swung it at me. I jumped back, the blade just grazing my left arm, and crashed into the grandfather clock. As the clock fell to the ground, the giant swung his blade at my head. The last thing I remember was the grandfather clock crashing into the floor and sparks flying.
I woke up in the holding cell, my heart pounding, the fluorescent lights above me were shining bright. God, that was a strange dream, I thought. I didn’t remember the last time I had a nightmare that vivid. The cell door was opening, and Agent Nguyen and two other agents stepped inside. I scrambled to my feet.
“Jesus Christ,” one of them exclaimed. “You couldn’t have held it for a little longer, you just had to piss in the corner.”
“What did you expect me to do?” I yelled. “You locked me in a cell with a mad Russian and then didn’t answer when I knocked. How long was I in here for anyways, ten, twelve hours?”
“Sir,” Agent Nguyen began, “there was no Russian with you.”
“Well, Ukrainian then, it doesn’t really matter. The point is—”
“Sir, you have only been in here two hours. There was no one ever in this cell with you.”
Had I dreamt that too? There was no way, they were trying to gaslight me. It was then I looked down. My clothes, which had previously been clean, were covered in red dust, and on my left forearm there was a fresh cut.