Today, at Dr. Nevin’s office a very weird man walked in. he immediately picked on the very beautiful blond women who had a cold. The man was short, chubby, messy, and a need of shower. He was wearing a dark blue jacket, a pair of dirty baggy jeans, and red running shoes. He was going for the African-American look except that he looked awfully southern Iranian. The accent was so thick I could detect him from a mile away.
He kept talking to the blond woman and she kept ignoring him. He then moved down toward the woman’s legs, and picked up a dime beneath the woman’s chair. She was freaking out, and I hated him so much for doing this.
Some time passed and the woman asked me if I was Eastern European (believe me she did.) I said: “no, I am middle eastern.” I could not believe myself, for the first time in my whole immigrant life I was ashamed of being an Iranian.
The woman left sooner than the two of us, and he asked me:
Are you Iranian?
-Yes I am.
You have been here long?
-Yes.
Do you speak Farsi?
-Sometimes.
You know I sleep in the streets!
- Why don’t you go to the shelters?
I have a place, it’s a subsidized housing at Scarborough. I am too scared to sleep there.
-Why?
It is full of criminals, drugies, mrugies, people get killed there a lot.
-Why don’t you move?
It took me three years to get this place; I am on the waiting lists of others…
-Why did you move here?
For the same reasons you did!

He had a bitter sarcastic tone, as if I was responsible for all his problems. He then showed me his family pictures of his parents, his siblings, and their children. They looked really well-off. They had nice houses, nice cars, and great looks. It was then that it hit me. This is my future; this is who I am going to be. He is right; we came here for exactly the same reasons. I ran to the washroom and waited for the doctor to call my name. When I was leaving, I did not look at him. I nodded my head and said “good luck”.