My visa expired at midnight.

A soldier with a massive neck, body bursting out of his uniform, buttons straining, machine gun slung down his back, saw me coming. John Candy blocked my way. He asked me where I was going.

UKRAINIAN FUDGE BY JAMES ROBERTOVICH MARTIN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 88

I reached the Ukraine border at 23:15. My Ukraine visa expired at midnight. Fifteen cars were in front of us.

“Ruslan, maybe I should go up to the front and—“

“Not for people walk across border.” Ruslan, my Bla Bla driver, a tall, thin man with black hair and a pointy nose uttered a long string of something in Uko-Russian which I didn’t fully understand, but the gist of it was that we would have time to make it to the other side and Poland before midnight. Basically, I should simply shut my trap and cool my jets.

I looked up a travel website on my phone and started reading a story about people working on cargo ships to see the world, exactly what I’d wanted to do six years ago but I couldn’t figure out how to.

I looked up to see …