TERMINAL

by Thea Archer

  "Very strong," she said, a smile breaking across her face. "Invulnerable, actually."

  "Invulnerable," I repeated. "Then why is it so painful?"

  Somehow she understood I was no longer talking about the pushpins.

  "Because we not get destroyed, but change," she answered. "It's hard to say — for better or not... Here, in this place, there are no concepts of good and bad."

  "Right."

  I sat up, pulled my knees up, and wrapped my arms around them.

  There was another beat of silence, and Evi decided to break it first.

  "Did you know that Ian always—"

  "Carried the pushpins in his pocket?" I interrupted her and smiled wryly. "Yes. He thought I don't know that he'd always squeeze them in the palm when he felt anxious or distracted. His whole life he tried to harm himself, it's like... like the pain was his only way to feel better."

  "Because of guilt over the death of his father?"

  "Because of guilt over his existence."

  "But he killed—"

  "He was just a kid!" I shouted. "He was a kid who found the only way to survive!"

  Evi frowned, and I knew why.

  "You've read his dossier, but you should've asked him first," I said. "Didn't you notice? These frigging dossiers are only about people's actions and decisions, but not about the things they had been through."

  She seemed to be waiting for me to say more.

  "If he hadn't done that, his father would've killed him," I just said, not wanting to go into details.

  She was silent for a moment.

  "You really love him," she finally said.

  I didn't say anything — it was an obvious conclusion.

  "Now... I just need to get there."

  "There? You mean..."

  "Yes," I nodded one stiff nod. "I need to get to Hell."

  "What, are you crazy?"

  I flashed another glare toward Evi, and she threw me a disbelieving look.

  "Sven, just think, if you go to Paradise, you won't feel all this—"

  "I don't want that! I want him! I want to be with him wherever he is! Evi, I... I just don't see the point anymore."

  "Sven, we're talking about Hell here. And it might be different than what you think. It might be endless agony, burning bodies, and other clichés we know, but... What if you have to watch Ian dying again and again? Or killing you. Or... or killing himself. Which would be worse? "

  Now it was worse. It was way much worse when I didn't know where he was and when I couldn't help him, when I couldn't be near.

  "Evi," I choked out. "I do not care what will happen to me. He shouldn't be alone anymore; he shouldn't go through this alone."

  She was quiet. I glanced up and saw that her expression was pained.

  "I love him," I whispered. "And... I want to scream at the thought that he is scared now. He's just a boy, a child who spent his life in self-destruction and despair. His lifestyle is not a pleasure, but a punishment."

  I flashed a dark look at Evi, hesitating for a moment before asking, "You won't help me, right?"

  My question obviously caught her off guard.

  "What are you talking about?" I saw her eyes flicker to me and then at her hands.

  "I think you know very well what I'm talking about," I said.

  She was quiet; I continued. "And Ian knew too. He got that boy — his first protégé — to Paradise. And then Arthur too. And you knew about that, right?"

  "How did you know?" Evi asked weakly.

  I smiled.

  "Ian gave me a clue, though he may not even know it. But... I don't understand why didn't you ask Matthias to do it?"

  Evi wasn't going to look for any excuses, she sighed and scoffed ironically.

  "Only the first mentor can write the final destination in the dossier of his protégé. Mine has been long in Hell," she answered.

  I didn't say anything. It took a moment to get enough courage to look her in the eye before I spoke.

  "Please," I finally whispered, hopeless.

  "How could I do that to you?" She asked as if she wanted me to answer her rhetorical question.

  I slumped back and thumped my head against the wall.

  "What if that's the best thing you could do to me?" I asked.

  "I'm sorry."

  I laughed at myself for expecting anything else.

  Evi frowned at my chuckle.

  "Sven, it's not about the rules," she said flatly. "I'm not afraid for my soul and those score points I could earn for following the rules. I don't want you to suffer."

  "So, you don't want to feel the same, I feel right now?"

  "Sven, you won't protect him there," she said in a slow, heavy voice.

  "I was never really hoping to protect him. I just want to be near."

  Therefore, I should have done everything I could to earn that one-way-ticket.

  21. 10 WAYS TO KILL TIME DURING A FLIGHT DELAY

  I rubbed my face, trying to remember how my own face looks like, but the only features I could remember belonged to another person.

  Self-confidence? I didn't need such nonsense. I didn't even care how ridiculous I looked — at the end, when the heart has taken the draw, the only thing that matters are feelings.

  I was pleased to feel my lips stretching into a smile. I recognized those feelings — the courage, the rage. Those were all I needed.

  I unbuttoned my shirt and touched my stomach with the tips of my fingers.

  This was my body. I had no idea what atoms it was made of, but I felt it. As long as I felt like a human being, I existed. As long as I could feel my body, I would fight. And this pain would support me until the very end, wherever my next end was going to come.

  I challenge Thou, show me the fury.

  ONE.

  The wide sounds of my footsteps — confident and heavy — echoed through the white space and made the distant voices in the terminal fade away. I grinned again. They didn't know what to expect, and probably they were waiting for my anger.

  Not now.

  A little party is better than a bunch of long faces.

  I threw the door open and instantly felt dozens of wary glances on my face, but I didn't want to meet those eyes yet.

  As I crossed the threshold of the terminal, the atmosphere became almost tangible.

  I walked to the South Gate and glared at Hurl, who was smiling hesitantly from behind the check-in counter.

  I approached and cracked a smile.

  "May I?" I pointed to a loudspeaker on the desk. Hurl blinked, surprised, but I didn't actually need his approval.

  I took the microphone and weighed it in my hand. I had never been eloquent and spectacular as him. He was made to create, but all I could do was destroy.

  Silently, with a quick, powerful flip of my arm, I threw the microphone into the display board; with a high-pitched screech, it ricocheted across the hall and landed on the floor, sliding few meters before disappear under the West Gate's check-in counter.

  Loudspeaker's disgusting squeaking gradually ceased, I heard a few bewildered gasps and glanced at the unscathed display board.

  "Nah, I guess it didn't work out," I commented. I caught dumbfounded gazes of transfers on my face and shrugged. "I just wanted to try it. It would've been fun if it crashed, a little bit of chaos would defuse this gloomy — I would say funereal — atmosphere."

  "Sven," Evi's hard voice ripped the silence. "What do you want?"

  "I'm trying to make contact with this..." I gestured vaguely toward the ceiling and continued. "God of yours. By the way, is there any news on them? No? Maybe someone saw them? Who are they? What's their name? Was it a carpenter? Or maybe a winemaker? A pharmacist? Or was it just a very... extremely ancient influencer?"

  "Sven..."

  "Millions of people die. Millions, hundreds of millions of children pray — every day, every night — for survival because they've been taught that this is their only hope, that it would help them. Millions of an
imals die in pain every day. Women are forced to give birth to their rapists' children because one shitty book told them about the sins, while these rapists go to Paradise. The whole world in agony! And you still believe that there is a God?"

  "Stop it—"

  "A boy," I interrupted her, my voice was sharper than I'd intended. "A child, imagine a child with broken bones, covered with blood, begging for death. Was this the Lord's will?"

  The silence dragged on, I didn't want to prolong it, but I enjoyed this astonished tension for some reason.

  "This child — wounded, scared, desperate child — he put an end to it. But now that monster who did this to him is chilling in Paradise. And this boy... Yes, I signed his dossier recently."

  TWO.

  Judith pressed her hand to her lips as if trying to suppress a silent scream.

  I continued, my eyes were fixed on Evi, but I spoke to everyone in this room.

  "Do you think he forgot what he did? Not one day has gone past when he hasn't thought of it. And... everything he did, his every act was an echo of his guilt. No matter how badly he hurt himself, no matter how deep he pressed those damned pushpins into his hands... He did not feel better. And now he is in Hell. Again. Is this justice? Is this good? For me, he is a god. For me, he is the only bright spot in that hopeless, sickening, dirty hole that we used to call life. And everyone agrees that here, in this frigging purgatory, it was him — the boy, whom his father used to tie to a hot radiator — who made you all want to live again."

  THREE.

  I burst out laughing, my laugh seemed unnatural and ominous, even to me.

  "Evi, do you really think that someone will suddenly show up to punish my sinner ass and prove something? If they exist, they're probably a lazy, narcissistic sociopath, and they wouldn't care about people like me, you and the others are here. Whether it's God, Allah, or Ishvara… They're not good. They're just a pitiful sadistic bastard."

  FOUR.

  I turned away from Evi to meet Mrs. Angerer's glance. I couldn't believe the rush of emotions pulsing through me — wrath, despair, and guilt at once. But guilt was the strongest one – it gripped my body from the very core of my being.

  A sudden disgusting chime from the depths of the ceiling announced another arrival.

  "Sven," Evi's gaze was icy. "The South Gate."

  "I don't care!" I yelled. "I don't give a fuck! Do you really think I'm going to keep working? I don't care, Evi. I don't care if this place fills up with dead people. I'm not going to follow the rules blindly and do whatever the damn display tells me. Whoever came up with all this... They're sick. I don't have to prove anything to anyone; I don't belong to this place. And obviously, I don't belong to Paradise."

  Evi shot a glance at one of the transfers.

  "Tobias, please..."

  He nodded and headed toward the jet bridge, while Hurl was printing the dossier.

  "Just quit it," Evi turned to me again. "Or—"

  "Or what? Hmm? Or God will strike me with a thunder? Or punish me with fifty-five thousand tortures he invented? Right, Martin? "

  I took a step toward Martin Blass, the transfer of East Gate; he stiffened alarmed by the intensity of my sudden attention.

  "You're a doctor. You are the one who used to save lives, right? You spent years leaning over patients on the operating table. Correct me if I'm wrong, there are fifty-five thousand diseases listed in ICD-11?"

  He didn't say anything, just stared at me with a pained expression.

  I was silent for a while, studying the reaction of people to my speech. It seems that no one but Evi was eager to stop me. They knew I was right.

  FIVE.

  The pause stretched on; I could feel a vicious silence envelop me.

  I finally continued. "My... my stupid mother decided I would be a Jew as soon as I was born, but... you know, right?" I glanced briefly at Moritz. "Here I am, not even circumcised. Mazal Tov, mutherfuckers! Just imagine, parents decided that an eight-day-old baby survive any pain just to please some antiquated book. How brainwashed you should be to allow a pair of rabbis to perform a sacrificial ritual on your own child! And it turns out nobody needed that."

  SIX.

  "Sven, enough."

  "Indeed, less of the chitchat," I sighed. "Actually, I have something to do. Hey, you..."

  I motioned for a newcomer to approach me, it was a young man who died of an aneurism four days after his college graduation, and by now he was considered my new protégé.

  "Come here, you, Ulrich, or whatever your name is... "

  "Uwe..." he corrected shyly.

  "Yeah, whatever. You're still carrying around your dossier?" I asked though I didn't need the answer — I saw the folder tucked under his arm.

  "Give it to me," I reached out my hand.

  He looked at me frightened, not daring to move.

  I smiled coldly at him.

  "Relax. I won't read it aloud. Nobody cares about the song you lost your virginity to. Alright, who am I kidding? I haven't lost mine. And for the record, this is irrelevant since virginity is just a social construct created to criticize me for not having sex and slut-shame Judith. I mean, look at me, I'm innocent and pure, and I'm still here."

  Uwe rubbed his shoulder nervously and handed me his dossier — a thin folder with less than sixty pages in it.

  I pulled the pencil out of my trousers' pocket and opened the last page of the dossier.

  "Sven!" Evi's voice cracked in panic. Her expression was growing more anxious as she watched my moves.

  "C'mon, the only person who has to be sent to Hell is right in front of you."

  "Sven, stop it!"

  Paradise, I scribbled and signed above the line.

  The signal came out at the moment the tip of the pencil scrawled the last stroke of my signature.

  "What the..."

  "Did he really..."

  "Evi, what the hell?"

  Resentful gasps and shocked hissings gusted through the Terminal.

  "You have no right to decide—" Evi snarled, but I interrupted her.

  "Nobody has one!" I exclaimed.

  "Evi, is that true? We all can do that?"

  "No," I replied. "Only the very first mentor can sign the dossier of their protégé."

  A pained look tightened Evi's face.

  "I'm sorry," I said sincerely. "But they have to know."

  "Um... Should I..." Uwe said; he seemed utterly confused.

  "Yes," I said. "Just go."

  "Thank you..."

  He stumbled toward the Paradise sign, one of the transfers followed him to accompany.

  "Why didn't you tell us, Evi?" Judith's whisper broke the stupefied silence.

  "Because... Because..." She faltered, but I knew her answer.

  Because I don't want to be alone here.

  "Because if we were choosing our protégé's destination based on our personal impression of the person, there would be chaos," Matthias suddenly joined. "It's not damned Hunger Games!"

  I glanced at him and smiled at the turn the conversation had taken.

  "Right," I said. "And if I were your protégé, I would be in Hell right now."

  I heard Evi's sign and glanced up, apprehensively, to see her expression abruptly changed. Her eyes sparkled with pity instead of reproach or indignation. He turned away swiftly and strode toward the Archive.

  I knew she felt betrayed. But that was my plan.

  Forgive me, I pleaded mentally, looking at her back.

  SEVEN.

  I took a deep breath — it's not that I felt a lack of oxygen, but it gave me some more courage.

  The terminal was no longer quiet, the transfers were whispering, I heard disgruntled exclamations — the tension was growing increasingly. I felt a sharp ache in my shoulder — it was Matthias's rough hand.

  "Now look what you've done!" he growled. "This is what you wanted?"

  I made a huge grin, and it silenced him.

  "I expected nothing less from
you," I said and shrugged. "You've always hated me. Probably because I'm gay. Or because you want me."

  "What? What the..."

  I stepped toward him and smiled.

  "Then, why?" I asked in a sugar-sweet voice.

  He clenched his teeth together in apparent fury.

  "This is unnatural and disgusting."

  "Unnatural," I echoed and leaned closer to him. "Is this unnatural too?"

  I grasped Matthias' chin, resigned to the upcoming pain, but to my surprise, it made its appearance a few seconds after I touched his lips with my tongue.

  The ferocious blow to my face knocked me to the floor, the agony pulsed through my skull, but I felt a hardly resistible urge to laugh. This kiss was rough and obscene, ugly even, but the pain totally worth it.

  I realized then that I felt exactly the same Ian had felt when he'd kissed me for the first time — I'd stood almost in the same place Matthias was standing now; the same gasps had run through the Terminal as he punched me.

  EIGHT. NINE. TEN.

  "Don't touch me, you, freak," Matthias spat out the words at me, and I grinned smugly.

  None of the transfers made a sound, they seemed forgot about Evi and their righteous anger; they were entirely engrossed in the one-person show I caused on my own imaginary stage, just like Ian used to do.

  "Right," I said, smiling crookedly. "That's unnatural. You're a horrible kisser. But what if I do this to your pretty little Marie, huh? I heard what you said about her... You said you'd totally fuck her if you could. Is this natural to you?"

  I threw a glance toward Marie, who's expression was strained and alert.

  "Should I kiss her instead?"

  Matthias growled, his nostrils flaring; he grabbed the collar of my shirt, and I stiffened with pain as another blow struck my jaw.

  "Let him go!" Judith's voice cried in horror.

  Matthias obviously wasn't going to obey, he pulled his arm back for another hit, but I beat him there, punching him in the ear with as much power as I could force out of this body. He pulled away from me with a grunt, and I managed to stand up while West Gate's transfer grabbed Matthias' arm to prevent him from attacking me again.

  "Enough!" Moritz's roar seemed deafening over my ear; I felt his rough hand clenched my shoulder. "You're about to do something you'll be sorry for later," he said harshly.