A Day at Terminal Aleph

It’s 0500 hours and Frederick Tan Chong Ming is standing on the runway, waiting for G_d. He peers into the night sky. Nothing. Nothing but the stars and the lights of the oil tankers floating out in the distance.

He radios the Control Tower.

“Control, this is Foxtrot Niner. Please confirm ETA for Yod Hey Vav Hey, over.”

“Foxtrot Niner, this is Control. Please follow original timing of oh four four five. I repeat. Please follow original timing of oh four four five, over.”

Frederick puts down his handset, curses, reaches into his pocket for a smoke and then remembers it's empty. All crew are supposed to be on their best behaviour when greeting VVVIPs; that means no cigarettes, no cough drops, no alcohol, not even a mobile phone to ease the tedium with Candy Crush. Out of courtesy, he picks up his handset and replies, “Wilco, out,” then goes back to scanning the horizon.

He doesn’t have to wait long. At 0509, a chill descends, the wind whips itself into a frenzy and a crack of thunder echoes above him. He has just enough time to radio, “Incoming,” and raise his umbrella when the rain starts pelting down, bringing with it fragments of ice, locusts, frogs and dumbstruck fish. In front of him, two columns form, one made of smoke and the other of fire. They twist and writhe against each other, arcs of electricity leaping between them all the while.

Frederick rubs his hands. He knows the drill. Keeping his umbrella gripped in one hand, he removes his shoes and socks, then advances barefoot to the pillars, dodging the falling and fallen fauna as best he can. When he reaches the pillars, he discards the umbrella and kneels. “, שלום ” he says, head bowed, pressing his skullcap to his head.

Instantly, the deluge halts. The winds grow warmer, gentler, and the flames and smoke collapse into a ball of light, a tiny white dove suspended inside. He gestures towards the carpet of rushes laid out on the ground, marking the route to the Arrivals Hall. The ball bobs a little, as if nodding, and floats its way into the building. Before they pass through the automatic doors, the dove takes a shit on the rushes.

“Yod Hey Vav Hey has made landfall at oh five oh nine,” Frederick announces to Control. A frog hops over his naked foot. “Please dispatch cleanup crew, over.”

“Good work, Foxtrot Niner,” Control responds. “Nabilah’s coming with a dustpan. You can have your smoking break now. Out.”

At 0635, Bhuvaneswary Rajamanickam is in the staff canteen, having coffee with the new Guest Relations Officer, Ramona Fong. She’s a pretty girl, the older woman thinks. Looks good in her uniform of red blazer and black pumps. Too good, in fact. The Committee should pick its hires more carefully. She makes a note of this on her tablet.

“Are you a fast learner?” she asks.

“I was third in my cohort at SHATEC.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. This place is a death trap.” They stand up, leaving behind their soft-boiled eggs with pepper and soy sauce.

“I was here when we started ten years ago,” she continues, “just after Singapore signed the first Transcendental MOU. This was an experimental project then. It still is, actually. But when you’re a small country, that’s what you do to survive: you try things no one’s accomplished before, and pray for success.”

They enter the lift for the Arrivals Hall.

“Of course, praying works rather better here than in other places.”

Ramona nods, nervous. It’s still only her first week, but already she’s having regrets. She was raised in a strict Methodist household: no Harry Potter books, no Halloween, no dating Catholics or other pagans. She still can’t get used to what she has to do for this job. I should apply for work in the casinos, she thinks to herself. Or else there’s Dubai. They need people in Dubai.

They’re in the Arrivals Hall now, on the third floor. Bhuva guides her towards the Observation Deck. “This is your first time doing the dawn detail, no? It can get quite busy. Best to stand guard here, keep a lookout for your VVVIPs.”

Sure enough, within five seconds, a golden chariot crashes to the earth, pulled by seven horses. Seated within is a man with a blazing red aura about his endless black hair, a crown on his head, and a garland of jasmine and roses at his throat. He’s seated in the lotus position and holds a conch in one of his four hands.

Bhuva raises her walkie-talkie to her mouth. “Jessica. Oats for the sun-horses. Now.”

Over the next hour, Ramona watches them land. There’s another chariot, driven by a man in a purple chiton, drawn by four-winged steeds. A massive wheel, sprouting horns and feathers, in which a bearded man sits holding a bow. Then a barge full of beings with the heads of animals, eagles and falcons and lions, waited upon by half-naked slaves.

All this while, Bhuva is shouting orders into her walkie-talkie. “Coffee for Helios.” “Unleavened bread for Ashur.” “Water for the Egyptian slaves.”

Beneath the barge, she notices a giant dung beetle, black and hairy, with dimples all across its carapace. Its business seems to be to push the barge around when it’s moving across the sky. It shovels dust into its mouth, wiggling its stunted feelers at her. She presses her hand to her face. She thinks she’s going to be sick.

In the kitchen at 0851, Chu Ci is preparing offerings. Some of the demands of the VVVIPs are easily dealt with. The Hindu ones, for instance, are often happy with split coconuts, marigolds, a splash of ghee or milk. The Greeks prefer bread, honey, apples, wine and herbs. Shinto divinities are more demanding, being used to the best of everything: air-flown seaweed, sake, rice cakes, tofu, fresh satsumas and ruby-red tuna.

Still, it’s the Aztecs who’re the biggest headache. They ask for outlandish things like butterflies and hummingbirds, jaguar meat and eagle flesh. The Terminal has therefore made it clear there are things that can and can’t be accommodated, unless preorders have been made, of course.

There’s something, however, that’ll always satisfy their appetites. And it’s expensive. Still, in a place like this, even the most lavish of whims can be entertained.

“You know her usual,” Bhuva’s voice says over the radio.

“Are you sure? Can’t she be happy with some blood-streaked maguey thorns?”

“You want to go out there and say no to her face? Do you?”

Ci shudders. He’s glimpsed this customer before through the window, with her pendulous breasts, her long, rotting claws and her skirt of snakes. He wouldn’t want to cross her. He tests the sharpness of his instruments, and makes his way to the abattoir.

The sacrifice is tranquillised in his cage, sleeping soundly. It’s easy for the airport to pull folks like this off planes, sometimes travelling under false passports, sometimes with bags of cocaine sealed into their rectums. This one’s young, bony, brown-skinned, with sand under his eyes. He’s wearing a Planet Hollywood T-shirt. Ci reaches in and pulls him out, cradling him in his strong arms before laying him down on the obsidian altar.

Carefully, he undresses him. But a split-second before he plunges the jade blade into his chest, the sacrifice stirs.

“អរុណសួស្ី,” he mumbles. “កុំប៉ះពាល់...ជួយ ខ្ុំ ផង!!!”

“Shhhh,” Ci says, and places his hand over his muzzle, so there’ll be no screaming while he cuts. He finishes the job as cleanly as he can: heart, hands, and, after some scraping, a human skull. He places everything on a plate, shoves it into the dumbwaiter, and presses the button for upstairs. Then he drains the body for blood. No use wasting it now, he thinks, rubbing away the dried residue from his hands.

The walkie-talkie buzzes. Ci answers it with a brown thumb.

“Hello?”

“She says you forgot the skin.”

Ci sighs, and goes to his cabinet for the flaying knife.

It’s 1104 and Nabilah bte Ayub, the cleaning lady, is emptying the rubbish bin in the main foyer. There’s very little inside: mostly what the staff have discarded. VVVIPs can’t be trained to use bins. What they don’t need, they just abandon in their wake.

Still, she thinks, she shouldn’t complain. After all, she’s surrounded by beauty. This is by far the most exclusive of all the terminals in the airport, its escalators inlaid with ivory, its ceilings patterned with mother-of-pearl mosaics, its gardens planted with bromeliads and poppies. Her brother works in the shipyards, her sister on the assembly line. They sweat and boil and earn peanuts. She might have to mop up tiger piss and elephant dung, but at least she has a nice view.

A flock of angels glides by, harps and dulcimers in hand. A kachina takes a selfie with its smartphone. An orisha walks past, dropping a cupcake wrapper at her feet. She scoops it up, ignoring the ache in her spine.

Then she stands back. For some reason, the Monkey King is throwing a tantrum. He’s pulled out his hair, torn off his phoenix-feather cap and leapt up to the ceiling, where he’s using his magic staff to bash away at the chandeliers, sending shards of cinnabar and tanzanite hurtling to the floor. “大聖 爺雷霆大怒!” he’s screaming. “眾人無不退避三舍，束手 無策地瞧大聖爺!”

A security officer comes rushing in, surveys the situation, and retrieves his tablet computer. He plays with the screen a little, then methodically rattles off an incantation: “Pânâtipâtâ veramani sikkhâpadam samâdiyâmi, adinnâdânâ veramani sikkhâpadam samâdiyâmi…” And with a screech, the Monkey King clutches his forehead and collapses onto the tiles. The security officer slings him over his shoulder and takes him away.

When the commotion’s over, Nabilah realises someone has been watching her from the snack shop. Someone or something. It has the white face of a human, neither male nor female, the white body of a donkey or mule, and two rain-bow-hued wings.

It’s very handsome. But then she blinks, and it’s gone.

She looks back at the broken bits of chandelier and monkey hair on the floor. Work to do. Always more work to do.

There’s a ministerial site visit scheduled for 1330. A brigadiergeneral, newly appointed after the latest Cabinet reshuffle. Bhuva’s stomach rumbles. She’s had to miss lunch because of that monkey debacle, but it doesn’t matter. Her husband told her she was getting fat anyway.

“The only question was,” she tells the Minister, walking him through the koi gardens, “once we realised the potential, how could we not do it? We had made contact with all the major Pantheons by 1995, even several of the minor ones. And we knew their discontent. Many had millions of worshippers, even billions, in the case of our high rollers. They had power. They had clout. And they were bored, so very bored. So very eager to explore the mortal world they had left behind in the Age of Bronze. So very curious about this strange, ambitious city-state that believed it could touch the sky, yet was pious enough to ask leave of the Gods before it dared to do so.

“We opened in 2001. We were a modest operation then, with only a few manifestations per month, and a handful of shamans and bonzes to guide us on our way. We didn’t see our future, you know. We thought we couldn’t compete with more traditional spiritual centres, like Jerusalem, or Cuzco, or Varanasi. That was a mistake. We made many mistakes. We still make mistakes, in fact.” She laughs, and the Minister laughs too.

“The truth is, however, we are beloved by the Gods. They really, truly adore our standard of service. Many insist on flying through us before they go on to Uluru or the Vatican. And in return for our service they give us blessings. This is how our country has fared so well, even during the worst of the Global Economic Crisis. This is how we shall escape the effects of climate change, famine, global terror, pandemic disease.”

They’re now back at the Observation Deck. She points out Yurlunggur, the Rainbow Serpent, corkscrewing his way down from the clouds to the runway. She points out Vishnu the Preserver and his consort Lakshmi, gracefully dismounting the massive eagle-god Garuda, whom her agents are now spoiling with a meal of curried vipers.

“Religion is a stabilising force in our society. For public peace of mind, and for our long-term benefit, the existence of this facility must be kept a secret,” Bhuva says. “But you must never overlook our importance. Because of this Terminal, we are now the Anointed Ones. We are the Chosen Race.”

Security Officer Zainuddin bin Hasim is having a tough day. “Please lah,” he says to the god. “Don’t make my life difficult.”

It’s 1548 and he’s nowhere near the end of his shift. First he had to break up a mead-fuelled brawl between a Norse goddess and a Frost Giant, then there was the idiotic business with the Monkey God. And now this. He sits at his desk, staring at the deity, who has dark skin, curly hair and eyes like topaz stones.

“Where are you from?” he says.

جرمة“ the god replies.

“Never heard of it.”

“It is…it is in what you call Libya now, I think. It is cited in the Histories of Tacitus.”

“Don’t bullshit,” Zainuddin growls. “I don’t care what your history is. If I haven’t heard of you, you don’t exist.”

The god takes umbrage at this. “You…you don’t know who you’re talking to. I could turn you into a germ, this instant. I could spit on you and make you into a new heaven and a new earth. You’re only a mortal. You’ll live fifty, sixty, a hundred years? I shall dance upon your grave.”

Zainuddin starts to smile. Threatening an officer. This could be enjoyable, actually. The god goes on with his tirade. “I shall call upon my attendant spirits, and they shall rip you apart and feed you to the jackals.”

“Call them.”

“Sorry?”

“Call them now. I want to meet them.”

The god knits his brow and waggles his fingers in the air. The room begins to shake, but after half a minute, it stops.

“Nice show,” Zainuddin says. “So you are a god. You’re just not very good at it anymore.”

He taps a few keystrokes into his tablet and pulls up a list of numbers. “See, this is what we have a problem with. You came in under the false ID of Odomankoma of the Asante. You ordered yourself some burnt offerings. A lot of burnt offerings. You insisted on buying on credit. You then got yourself drunk on cane liquor and began threatening to bring about the end of the universe. We detained you. We discovered you could not pay your bill.”

The god seems deflated now. “Please. Have patience. I will pay you back.”

“How?” Zainuddin cracks a grin. “The inheritors of your faith have converted to Islam. Good choice, if I say so myself.”

“Listen to me. You can send me out into the world; I will be your Messiah, your Maitreya, your Mahdi, your trickster, your terrorist, anything you choose. I will earn it all back, and more. I will be your slave…”

“Go home.”

“I have no home.” Bright, amber tears begin dribbling down his face. “I have no home anymore.”

Zainuddin rises and passes the god a bottle of water. The god accepts it gratefully, unscrews it and drinks.

“So you want to stay here.”

“Yes, please.”

“Overnight.”

“As long as I may.”

“I think we can manage overnight.” He scrolls through his tablet again, locates the appropriate verse, and begins intoning the well-worn syllables of the Ayat Al-Kursi.

The god looks puzzled, then outraged, then oddly thoughtful. His eyelids are growing heavy, while the topaz sclera beneath them is fading into a more quotidian white. Finally, he slumps onto the desk, snoring. Zainuddin puts aside the water, and dials for the kitchen on the phone.

“Hullo? This is Security. Yah, yah. You can tell Ci we’ve got another sacrifice ready. I’ll send one of my men down. Just prepare the cage.”

It’s 1838. The sun is setting. Most of the day-tripping gods have upped and left, either to their own Valhallas or to luxury getaways in Bali or Mykonos, sometimes by way of a civilian jet, just to get the genuine mortal experience.

Frederick’s day is nearly at an end. He beams at Nabilah, who’s pouring sawdust on another load of divine horseshit, shovelling it away and carting it off in a wheelbarrow. Another day, another dollar, he thinks. Another job well done.

He clocks out and hands over his duties to Prudencia Bonifacio, the officer on night shift for Aether Traffic Control. While he’s showering in the locker room, she surveys the guest list, grimaces, and clears the gangway for the swarm of chthonic beings they’re welcoming at dusk.

And as the sky goes violet and the moon rises, she sees them, riding down on the wings of their dark, ragged robes. Their eyes are sunken in, their faces are pale masks of exquisite skeleton, and they’re accompanied by bats and cats and ravens and owls and ghouls, caterwauling and cackling, straddling backwards broomsticks or beating on iron cauldrons. Prudencia rolls her eyes at all this. Some people just haven’t any class.

Meanwhile, emptying her barrow at the dump, Nabilah spots the mule-bodied, human-faced creature. It’s by the electric fence, feeding off a bougainvillea bush. This time she remembers her manners and smiles at it. It smiles back.

“Assalamu’alaikum, O, Daughter of Eve,” it says.

“Wa’alaikumsalam,” she replies.

“Do you know what I am?”

“Forgive me, no.”

“I am the Buraq.”

The name sounds familiar, but she can’t place it. She bows and wonders if she should go. The other VVVIPs will need cleaning up after.

“I am a servant of the Archangel Jibril. I am the steed that has carried Prophets from the mortal world into the Seven Heavens.”

She stares at the creature, appalled.

“Come ride with me.”

“I cannot.”

“Why not?”

Beads of sweat gather on her palms and forehead. She attempts to collect herself, summoning comforting statements to her tongue.

“I am an employee here. I have duties.”

“Are these duties greater than your love for the Almighty? Are they greater than your longing to look upon His works, and glimpse the ultimate truth?”

The Buraq steps closer. Its iridescent wings sparkle in the lamplight.

Nabilah panics. She races back into the Terminal, through the locker room into the adjoining surau. Hurriedly, she performs her ablutions, shuts her eyes, cups her hands and begins to pray.

Ramona Fong has been shadowing Bhuva all day. Now, at 2100, she’s ready to go solo. She stands at the glass gates of the Terminal in front of a chartered bus and addresses the delegation from the Celtic Pantheon while her mentor watches on.

“Chairde a chara, fáilte a chur roimh Singeapór,” she says brightly. They’ve been wanting a tour for a while now, the chance to go shopping at Mustafa Centre with their ancient gold, or else court some whores at Orchard Towers. She’s just worried about their discretion. They’re all towering giants, with flaming red and blond hair, and covered in indigo tattoos. A couple of them are wearing torcs. One of them hasn’t magicked away his antlers yet.

“Ar an gcéad dul sios, roinnt rialacha bunúsacha,” she continues, carefully rolling her tongue around the unfamiliar consonants. “Lean mo treoracha i gcónaí. Má tá tú caillte, cur glaoch ar mo fón: +65 87333210. Ná caith tobac sa bhus. Ná rince sa bhus. Níl cead aon duine a mharú. Beidh na póilíní an-feargach. Ná rá go bhfuil tú déithe. Beidh daoine scanraithe. Anois, le do thoil leanúint liom. Beidh mé ag insint duit faoi stair mo oileán álainn...”

Bhuva gives her an encouraging grin. It’s all going very well. Then the gates open, and a bearded man with ram horns in a Hawaiian shirt exits the gates. He sees Ramona, sidles up to her, grabs her by the hips and lifts her effortlessly off her feet.

“ Όχι!” Bhuva barks, and radios for assistance. But it’s too late. He’s carried her off on a bolt of lightning, leaving only a shower of gold leaf in his wake.

It takes an hour to track him down. Security Officer Zainuddin discovers him in the orchid conservatory, naked, eating a slice of pizza.

“Where’s the girl?” he asks.

“We had a grand old time,” the god replies between chomps.

“I said where. Not how.”

“Next to the composting shed. She’ll be sore in the morning, I promise!” He bellows with laughter, and thunder rumbles beyond the windowpanes.

As it turns out, Ramona is not only next to the composting shed, but also on top of it, behind it, and inside.

The god has the grace to look ashamed. “I thought she liked it rough,” he says.

After processing the fine, Zainuddin calls Bhuva. “Poor girl. So pretty,” he tells her. “First week at work some more.”

Bhuva makes conciliatory noises into her mouthpiece. She really is sorry. But she can’t focus on sorrow for long. She’s now in the tour bus, pointing out the city’s prime sights to the Celts.

“Cuir breathnú ar do chlé,” she sings. “Beidh tú a fheiceáil ar an dealbh de na Merlion, a tógadh i 1972…”

Now it’s 2359, and the Terminal is growing quiet again. Prudencia has cleared the runway for take off. Wearing asbestos gloves, she carries a small fig tree that burns without consuming itself and places it at the centre of the runway. She then stands back and lets it dissolve into the night.

“Control, this is Papa Zero. Yod Hey Vav Hey has left the nest at oh oh hundred hours, over.”

Behind her, she hears a voice. It’s Ci.

“Kamusta ka,” he says. He holds up a plastic bag full of yellow fluid. “Double-boiled soup. With ginseng. My mother in Guangdong says it’s good for the baby.”

“You darling,” Prudencia says. She knows she’s not supposed to eat or drink on the runway, but at this hour, who’s watching? She sips it up with a straw, keeping her eyes on the skyline in case of an unexpected visit.

“You ever thought you’d be doing this work?” Ci asks, after a while.

“Me? No. But it’s not so bad. I couldn’t do this in a regular air terminal, you know? Jet engines, they’ll destroy a baby’s ears.” She rubs her belly, and begins singing an old hymn she remembers in Tagalog.

When she gets to the hallelujahs, Ci asks, “You are Christian?”

“Of course.”

“In China, we used to believe in 毛主席, in Chairman Mao, in Communism,” he says. “Now we don’t believe in anything anymore.”

They’re silent for a while. Indoors, they can hear the sound of a machine, burnishing the floor with wax.

“Poor Nabilah. Still on duty.”

“Shouldn’t Hla Myatt have taken over by now?”

‘You don’t remember? On Tuesday she got eaten by the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea.”

“Oh yah. Such a waste.”

Another pause. Prudencia’s baby kicks, and she guides Ci’s hand to her shirt so he can witness the little miracle.

“Do you think you will raise your child to be Christian?”

“Yes, of course. It is good, you know? It is always good to have something to believe in.”

And it’s 0455. Nabilah is in the locker room, towelling off from her shower. She knows she should go home. But her next shift is in another five hours, and taxis are expensive at this time of the morning. She wonders if anyone will mind if she spends the night asleep in the surau.

Once she’s finished straightening her hijab, the Buraq appears again, stepping out from the women’s cubicles.

“Have no fear,” it tells her.

“Go away. You’ve got the wrong person.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I’m an ordinary woman. I’m not like the guests here. I can’t cross between Heaven and Hell. I have no right.”

The Buraq follows her out through the staff exit.

“Then stay,” it says. “Live your life without knowledge, and lie satisfied in your tomb. Billions do this. They accept the destinies they are dealt. They do not aspire to greatness. They change nothing. Nothing has to change.”

Nabilah peers into the creature’s eyes. Then she lifts her leg, climbs onto its back and grips its bridle.

And without ceremony, by the light of the morning star, the two of them disappear.