The Pillar’s Plane
I am not sure how much I’ve slept, but when I wake up it seems like more than seven hours have passed. I rub my eyes to take a better look outside my window.
I can’t believe what I am seeing.
We’re flying low, gliding over a white, snowy mountain in the middle of nowhere. The Pillar next to me is still flying the plane and listening to some Asian chanting melodies.
“Where are we?”
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he says and keeps chanting meeha tu tu chi , or something like that.
“I asked you where we are.”
“First, you have to admit it’s beautiful.”
“Okay, it’s beautiful. Where are we?”
“Here.” He points at something that’s revealing itself in the snow.
I squint and lean forward, waiting for the structures emerging out of the snow to make sense to me. Either my mind refuses to believe it or I am hallucinating.
“Is that a Buddha statue?” I point with an open mouth.
The Pillar nods, pointing. “That one is Buddha, that is Duddha, and the one on the left is Nuddha.”
“I’ve never learned of the last two.”
“They’re Buddha’s sisters, but no one ever mentions them because they were girls. You know how condescending religions are toward women.”
I ignore his remark. It’s the Pillar. No changing the way he views the world. I keep watching the structure behind the huge statues revealing itself. “It’s a monastery?”
“Jackpot!” The Pillar skews the plane, ready to land. “We’re in Tibet, baby! I hope you brought your orange robe along.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“We’re somewhere near Burang in the Tibet Autonomous Region.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are we here?”
“This is where IBM keeps their Deep Blue machine,” the Pillar says with a happy face, already waving to a few monks waiting for us below.
“Why here? This seems like the last place on earth to hide such a machine.”
“You said it yourself. Bury a genius machine in a monastery in the snow. Genius.” He reaches for something in the back with one hand. “Here. You have to dress in this.”
I grab the monk’s cloth. “Why do you want me to dress up in this?”
“We have to act like monks or they won’t let us see the machine. Trust me, you’ll love it here.”
Before I have a chance to argue, the plane lands with consecutive thuds on the snow. It’s such a clumsy landing that most of our plane’s nose is buried in white, and there is something burning in the back.
“My best landing yet,” the Pillar says. “The last one, everyone died but me.”