TERMINAL Page 4

  "Well—"

  I flinched as the loud male voice blared from the nowhere.

  "ANY AVAILABLE TRANSFER PLEASE REPORT TO THE SOUTH GATE."

  "I will never get used to this," I grumbled and stood up.

  Annika gave me one more kind smile before I dragged myself into the terminal.

  It was hard to accept.

  I was never curious enough for the courage to overcome my insecurity, and all my spontaneous actions were limited only to extreme sports, though for me, they were just another way to handle the stress. So I was ruthlessly overwhelmed with frustration, which was, probably, one of the stages of accepting this brand new, uncomfortable, and extremely unfair reality. But if I was being honest, I had no strength to fight and argue with these rules. The struggle for a better place is not limited to life — and that all I found out after its end. I doubted that there — in that moronic semblance of Limbo — is the place for rivalry, and perhaps that's why everything here should have been easier than in the Lower Level. All that people do here is trying to earn their room in Paradise, especially if during their life they failed to become worthy candidates for it.

  "The dossier," Mrs. Angerer met me with a warm smile.

  I nodded, and then I froze where I stood.

  "Is this a dossier?" I asked incredulously, glancing at a few sheets of paper that Mrs. Angerer reached out.

  She just nodded.

  I took the dossier and looked at the title page.

  "Fuck," I could only say.

  Mary Schmidt, 03/27/2012

  "A child," I whispered weakly.

  "I am sorry," Mrs. Angerer glanced at me ruefully.

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  She must be scared there, in the jet bridge, I thought.

  I didn't want to keep her waiting there alone.

  Even though I knew what was awaiting me, I was shocked when I walked into the jet bridge. A little girl was waiting for me there; she was adorable, but the clothes she was wearing seemed ridiculous, absurd even: she was in similar trousers and an ironed white shirt as me.

  "Hello, princess Mary," I smiled at the girl: she snapped her cautious look at me, her expression was wary but curious.

  I squatted down next to her.

  "How are you?"

  The girl clenched her hands behind her back.

  "My dad forbade me to talk to strangers," she said, her lovely voice was like wind chimes.

  "He did right," I said. "But, unfortunately, you have to break that rule today."

  The girl apparently didn't like my last statement.

  "I want my daddy," she said.

  "I know," I said. "But I can't take you to him."

  "Why?"

  I felt the sudden lump in my throat.

  "Who do you live with? With your dad?" I asked.

  "Yes. And Sparkle. My rabbit."

  "Sparkle..."

  "He's cute."

  "I bet he is."

  "What about your grandma?"

  "Daddy said she is with my mommy and with the angels."

  "Do you want to see both of them again?"

  She blinked twice and tilted his head to one side.

  "Are you an angel?"

  I smiled.

  "No. But I think I know where angels are."

  I held out my hand, and Mary grabbed my fingers after a second of hesitation.

  "Let's go," I said gently, feeling desperate while clutching that tiny palm.

  I stood up and led her through the door into the terminal.

  "I want my mommy. I miss her."

  "You will see her soon," I said, watching Mary surreptitiously.

  Such a tiny human creature, I thought desperately. She was so innocent, so pure; she died so young, on the threshold of her life. That seemed unfair, out of balance, wrong.

  One big step for me and three little steps for Mary, and we were standing in the snow-white lobby of the Terminal; I struggled to move.

  "Here we go," I squeezed out and forced myself to the direction of big PARADISE sign.

  "Sven!"

  I looked back toward Evi's strained voice called my name.

  "What?" I turned around to see her icy gaze.

  She waved toward the display board, and I looked at it, still clutching at Mary's hand.

  "What..." I repeated, but this time in a barely-there voice.

  I could feel the shock frozen on my face.

  "Who are they?" Mary asked, glancing at Evi and Mrs. Angerer.

  "They..." I whispered, unable to hide the fear in my voice.

  I cleared my throat and tried to smile at the girl, but the smile was unconvincing.

  "Sorry, wait a second."

  I released her fingers and opened the dossier, flipping pages fiercely to reach the last one.

  PLACE OF DEATH: 51° 38'18.65"N 12° 38'53.5"E

  CAUSE OF DEATH: MURDER

  STATUS (YES / NO): YES

  STATUS DETAILS: VICTIM

  DEPARTURE: HELL

  "No," I said, but my voice broke.

  How was that possible?

  "No way," I said sternly and grabbed Mary's hand again.

  "Sven!" Moritz called out. "The other way!"

  "NO!" I yelled and felt Mary stiffened, but I made another step toward Paradise.

  "The door won't open."

  This time it was Evi's voice again. I was frozen in place, stabbed through with her indifferent tone.

  "No," though I wanted to scream, I could only manage a whisper.

  "Are you lost?" Mary's voice echoed with a sharp pain in the chest.

  "Sven," Evi said again, "you can't help her."

  I finally met her gaze; her eyes were impenetrable.

  "I can't... But... She's just seven." "I said weakly.

  "I know."

  But how could I?

  I was abruptly exhausted, but I didn't want to give up.

  "Wait, I'm sure there are options besides—"

  "No."

  "But that's... Evi, this is..."

  "Just... Go to the break room. I'll take her."

  "No! No, I can't just..."

  "GO!"

  I glanced at Mary, who was scared now and at the dossier in my hand — the few pieces of paper I was clutching furiously. I felt helpless, utterly useless.

  Is this... something I got to get used to? I Do I have to get used to accompany children to Hell? With the same impassive face as Evi has?

  "Sven."

  I flinched as I realized my hand was still clasping Mary's tiny fingers.

  I watched with quiet horror as Evi taking Mary's hand away from me and leading her toward the door with the sign HELL above it.

  ***

  "What do you mean you won't do it?" Evi asked, her eyes locking on mine.

  "I meant what I said," I responded in the same steel-hard voice.

  "You have to do it."

  "I..." I had to pause to gather all my jumbled thoughts, but the result was the phrase, "I can't."

  "Sven, we all do it! And you can too! Those are the rules."

  "I don't care about the fucking rules!"

  Evi took a deep breath and looked at me again, her face softened.

  "Look," she said, her voice was low but urgent. "We must, okay? Who shall it be if not us? Besides... We're only here to do it."

  I crossed my arms tightly across my chest, my hands clenching into fists.

  "Stop lying to yourself," I said. "In fact, you have no idea why you are here. And you know better than anyone that this is pointless to follow these rules."

  "I have no other choice."

  Yes, I knew she was right. And I knew I had no choice either.

  But this... This was beyond my comprehension.

  "That is... If we follow the rules — whoever created them — it doesn't matter how cruel and unfair the 'right things' we do, we'll go to Paradise?"

  Evi said nothing.

  "See, this is what I'm saying," I said quietly. "Even if we unconditi
onally and adamantly follow the frigging rules, this does not guarantee us the place in Paradise. We are just a bunch of tiny gears stuck in one big absurd mechanism. We are entrusted with the dirtiest work, for lack of another purpose. We are just cleaners. But in fact... It's like a war. We... do what we are told, we send innocent people — little kids — to Hell to keep... to keep someone above satisfied?"

  "Don't say that," Evi frowned, and I just couldn't help but smile contemptuously.

  "Why, you afraid of them? I asked. "Are you afraid that 'someone above' will punish us? You know, the things people do here... This is Hell. Therefore, I am ready to say goodbye to this place right now. Even if my next destination will be Hell itself."

  I rubbed my face desperately. I felt tired.

  "Sven," Evi said softly. "We all are in the same boat right now. And believe me, this... this is not the worst option."

  I wasn't sure I wanted to know what could be worse than guiding a child to Hell.

  "I can't," I said honestly. "This is... This is beyond me."

  Evi sat down next to me, wearily and brushed the short strand of hair from her face.

  "Just go to the Archive. You'll handle the dossiers. This is tedious and quite boring work but... maybe you'll get used to it a bit. I think this might help you."

  How can someone get used to such a nightmare? I wondered.

  "Thank you," I whispered, though. "Paperwork would be perfect for me."

  Evi nodded.

  "Let's go then," she said, standing up. "I'll show you what you are going to face. You got a century's work to do."

  6. MOST ANNOYING PLANE PASSENGER EVER

  Millions of shelves. Tens of thousands of rows. This room was full of nothing but towering shelves covered in files. Billions of files.

  I looked at the nearest chrome glossy shelve in front of me, trying to imagine how long it would take to re-sort all the files in accordance with the alphabet and death date.

  An irritation was winning out over desperation as the dominant emotion in me.

  Actually, I have always been a somewhat temperamental person. I was quite an average child, but during adolescence, I became extremely irritable, and when I crossed the threshold of maturity, I realized that my angry outbursts were personal, intimate expressions of my self-hatred. But it is little wonder since I found out that I like men when I was thirteen and four years later I realized that I don't like sex with them; I didn't know 'homoromantic' word back then, so I could describe myself in one word 'freak.'

  This sequence of events, including quite mentally traumatic attempts to make sex and horrible breakup with the guy who'd called me sick, I just became grouchy and unsociable. But I didn't felt miserable though; I rather became calmer: when I am alone, it is much easier for me to cope with my own temperament.

  Well, by the age of twenty-seven, I had become... what I'd become. I had been thrusting my emotions into this trunk in the attic for so long so that it wasn't possible to open it anymore. And realizing that emotion suppression is often fatal to the body, I'd begun to look for ways to get rid of them, and I'd found three: cooking, water sports, and meditation. Since flights to Peru have been canceled at the moment, and there was no kitchen in here, I had only one option remained.

  I forced myself to take a deep breath, peering into the darkness behind my eyelids.

  "Anicca," I whispered. "Anicca, dukkha..."

  Any experience is temporary.

  Any act is impersonal.

  Any situation is-

  "Sven!"

  I tensed.

  All this has no value. The name is a word; the word is a sound; the sound is nothing.

  "Sven, where are you?!"

  I felt my jaw clenched tight.

  I am everywhere. Everywhere is nowhere.

  "Are you kidding me?!"

  I am free. My body is dead; therefore, my spirit is free.

  "Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire!"

  What?

  The Divine Comedy?

  What the...

  I opened my eyes abruptly.

  I could hear the babble of voices – loud, cheerful voices – coming from the terminal; I couldn't piece together that happy chatter and alarming tone of Moritz, who tried to find me, while I was hidden sitting under the huge chrome table in the Archive.

  The muffled laughter started again.

  So what's the urgency?

  I took another useless deep breath and climbed out of my little hiding place, trying to imagine why someone here could suddenly need me.

  I suppose they needed my help? But why? Why now? Why, at the very moment, when I tried to calm down, I got even more enraged?

  I guess I heard a bell clapper chimed, apprising of the newcomer before that amusement began.

  Wait... What if?

  I flinched at the thought of my name appearing on the FIDS.

  Could it be that?

  I headed to the Terminal as quickly as I could without actually running, focusing on the conversations I could hear.

  "Well, it is not at all surprising..."

  "Yeah, but it took pretty much long..."

  I threw open the doors and froze, constrained by several pairs of eyes fixed on me.

  "Sven!"

  "Finally!"

  "Where have you been?!"

  I looked around: Sanaya, who called my name, looked at me with a bit of pity in her eyes, although she was glowing of happiness. The second exclamation belonged to Evi, who was gazed at me with the usual condemnation in her face, and the question was asked by the puzzled Moritz, who, however, did not hide his perfect mood.

  "Sanaya is departing!" announced Thomas, Sanaya's mentor.

  "Oh," I felt ashamed for that note of disappointment in my voice. I smiled at Sanaya. "Congratulations!" I said.

  I really liked Sanaya, even though we had hardly spoken; I guess her honesty, courtesy, and kindness made absolutely everyone in the Terminal like her: all the transfers gathered around her with joyful smiles.

  "Isn't it great?!"

  "I know, right?"

  "I have one more news," Evi's tense voice made me stiffen. I looked at her and followed the pointed glance she threw in the display board direction.

  SANAYA CHADHA MMXIIV0146179 SOUTH GATE. DEPARTURE: PARADISE.

  IAN HASSLER MMXVIII00150993 SOUTH GATE. MENTOR: SVEN AMERY REINSCH.

  It seemed as soon as my gaze flickered along the second line, the grave silence stretched on in the hall, until Moritz laughed nervously.

  Hassler… That Hassler?

  "No," I said firmly. "Hell no."

  "Hmm…"

  I felt a brief sensation of falling deep in my stomach. My gaze instantly found the owner of this low, quiet, musical voice among the transfers: coal-black hair, a half-tucked shirt, his arms across his chest; he gazed at me with those dark piercing eyes, and a slight hint of the smile was playing around the edges of his lips.

  I tensed, my jaw clenched tight.

  Ian took half a step toward me.

  "Well, well, don't look at me like I'm trash. It makes me hard."

  ***

  Even though there wasn't any choice to make, I asked Annika for Ian's dossier, mostly to find out what I had to face mentoring Ian.

  However, I could not force myself to read it to the end; it was totally enough for me to flip through it briefly to understand that I hated this person. I used to call him 'eccentric guy,' so now I replaced it with 'twisted egocentric,' my aversion to Ian Hassler increased. This guy had been a regular at the police stations since fourteen years old, but I suspected that his offenses were not limited to smoking weed and lewd behavior in public places, as described in the dossier. Moreover, Ian's personal life was also the exact opposite of my own: his bed had met the countless men; I wonder how he did not end up becoming a regular patient in venereal diseases clinic because he didn't seem like a person used to using protection.

  "I don't want... I don'
t want to work with such a person," I finally concluded when Evi asked me about my intentions.

  "Why?"

  "Because... I do not like such vulgar, arrogant, narcissistic people. He is a criminal and a harasser. Do you remember what he did when he first met me? I'm a man, but it's still harassment."

  We lapsed in silence for a moment.

  "Well, he's not an easy one. But you obviously know how to handle him."

  I stared at Evi, stunned. "What?"

  She smiled.

  "Are you hearing this?"

  All I heard was a low murmur of many voices from the terminal.

  "No."

  "Exactly. It's so quiet I can hear my own thoughts. As soon as you talked to him — whatever you were talking about — he immediately calmed down."

  I looked away awkwardly, recalling our last conversation with Ian after Sanaya departed.

  "I am sick of your games," I'd said, as soon as we had been alone with him in the break room.

  "Then, don't play along."

  "What?"

  "Amery, when you react like this, you just encourage me."

  "It's Sven," I said between my teeth.

  I could tell by his expression, that was the exact reaction he wanted to get from me.

  "Hassler, you're dead. Does it make you happy?"

  "Yes," he answered promptly.

  "Look—"

  "I like you."

  "What?" I muttered again.

  "You heard me."

  I stared at his face again, this time trying to understand why he chose me as an object of derision. But he was grinning at me, his absurdly attractive face arrogant.

  "You know, fuck it. Go to hell." I said.

  "I'm trying here!" His mocking tone had followed me as I had walked away.

  I realized that I had seen him once since then and he was reticent, his euphoric mood strangely gone although seeing him silent was already unusual, I tried to ignore it without success.

  "I did nothing," I finally replied, returning to my conversation with Evi. "Most likely he's just disappointed. But this is not for long; I'm sure he will soon find a new victim for ridicule."

  I sighed and gazed up at the endless rows of shelves in front of us.

  "Don't worry," I said firmly. "Sanaya has already taught him everything he needs to know, right? All I have to do is punch him when he frightens newcomers. I can handle this. But... You know what makes me really mad?"