“Serfdom is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

—Weng Tzu Ch’ien 1461.
 
Malarkey was a dog lover with a mischievous glint in his eye, who was much beloved by children for his amusing tricks and jokes. He would run around with an empty paper bag, gazing upwards as if looking at something that was falling and with much contortion and physical gyration he would manage to catch it, giving credence to the non-existent object by surreptitiously flicking the bag with his thumb at the correct moment of its imaginary entry.
 
This game, seemingly so innocent and good natured, produced laughter and wonderment in children but had a deeper meaning.
 
Abdul was a kind man. He used to have an eye for fashion when he was young—wearing tight trousers, turned up at the ankle in casual perfection and shoes with thick crepe soles. He was not morally developed at the time and was able to shoplift without remorse, always generous with the proceeds and dressing his friends in style.
 
He had thickened over the years from good food, provided by his mother and his wife. Unbeknownst to both of them, he had a secret collection of garden gnomes, hidden among bluebell patches and gooseberry bushes. They all had conical hats, some flopped over to the side. They embarrassed him. He had always been aware of their significance but feared being mocked as different.
 
The two names Malarkey and Abdul, which might just as easily have been Hutchins and Broadbent—and like the pop groups that began to flourish in the West after The Second World War, implied a male bond founded upon a shared purpose. It was an evolution of what an anthropologist might describe as a hunting band. Modernity could hijack the primitive.
 
James Malarkey and Tariq Abdul both worked for a commercial airline.
 
“Cabin crew, doors to automatic.”
 
Their flight was routine, cruising at forty thousand feet, at a speed of five hundred and eighty miles an hour with the wind behind them. There was some turbulence as Malarkey began the descent and Abdul switched on the seatbelt signs. They pierced the clouds and lost visibility.
 
Then they lost radio contact.
 
This was a situation he had not faced before but Malarkey remained calm—a calmness bordering on panic. He knew he had a very short time to make a decision. They had not been cleared for landing. He could only hope that there were no other planes in the vicinity. He was flying by instruments. The cloud cover was dense and seemed to reach much lower to the ground than usual. Then he saw dim lights below him, runway lights.
 
“I’m taking her down, Tariq. This may be it.”
 
Lost in his own fear, Abdul said nothing but tightened his seat belt. There was no sound but the noise of the engines, relentless and powerful.
 
“Cabin crew take seats for landing.”
 
The fog thinned as the ground approached. The runway was lined by naked flames. The port wheel touched down first and the aircraft shuddered. A sickening second passed, then all the wheels were down and the engines roared, the ailerons up and straining. They hurtled down the runway, their momentum an act against nature.
 
Relief soon subsided as they looked at their surroundings. The runway lights were burning torches, behind which stood figures of twigs and straw with faces of painted wood. Each one was adorned with a necklace of shells.
 
“Cabin crew, doors to manual.”
 
The cabin crew didn’t respond.
 
Abdul unstrapped his belt.
 
“I’m going back to check on things.”
 
Malarkey stayed in his seat, gazing out at the runway which was not tarmac but looked like hard clay or packed earth. 
 
Abdul came back into the cockpit.
 
“The plane’s empty.”
 
“What do you mean empty”
 
“No crew or passengers. They’ve gone.”
 
“Are the doors open?”
 
“They’re locked.”
 
“Impossible.”
 
As he stared at the long line of fetishes behind the torches, Abdul realised that they had an existence beyond their physical representation, just like his garden gnomes.
 
“Impossible, yes but true. What now?”
 
Malarkey raised himself from his seat, “We’ll go back together and check everything again.”
 
He wanted to see for himself, to get his own confirmation. It wasn’t that he mistrusted Tariq, they had been close friends since they were teenagers—there was no one he trusted more. They had met when they both worked in a fast-food restaurant, and Tariq had dressed him to the nines. Later, it was he who had suggested they both go to flight school. Tariq had helped him too, especially at the time of his divorce. They had chipped away at the world together.
 
They walked back through the aircraft. As Abdul had said, the doors were all locked. They checked some of the overhead racks. Each one was full of luggage. The seats were strewn with blankets and bags. Malarkey picked up a book—A Perfect Vacuum by Stanislaw Lem. He dropped it back down. There were shoes under the seats here and there, empty and poignant.
 
Abdul had made his way to the galley at the back of the plane. Malarkey followed him there.
 
“Do you want a chicken tikka masala?”
 
Abdul was standing with a fork and an open aluminium food container. “Not bad for airline food. I think there’s some pasta alfredo, if you’re interested. Have one.”
 
“Stop trying to force feed me. We should go outside and try to find out where we are.”
 
They went back to the cockpit. On their way through the cabin, Malarkey saw that all the seat belts were buckled, which he hadn’t noticed before.
 
Disembarking was going to be difficult without the usual airport luxury of covered gangways. They decided their best option would be to use the emergency escape chute.
 
“What’s that?”
 
Abdul was looking out over the wing.
 
“What?”
 
“It seems The Welcome Committee is coming out to greet us.”
 
A squad of men was marching towards them over the airfield, rifles on their shoulders, with an officer ahead of them.
 
“I think they brought us here.”
 
“What? You believe in magic?”
 
“No but… Actually yes I do.
 
“Hmm, well it is definitely very strange.”
 
“Yeah. Stranger than life after birth.”
 
Abdul had always had a tendency towards conceptual spoonerisms. Malarkey chuckled.
 
“You mean after death? Do you think we’ve died?”
 
By now the soldiers were twenty yards from the plane, and their officer had called them to a halt. They broke rank and formed a line parallel to the fuselage. They stood at ease, impassive, with their rifle butts resting on the ground.
 
Except, their rifles were not real guns but sticks.
 
The men were shirtless and had the word PANAM painted in red letters across their chests. They were barefooted and kilted with cloths wrapped around their waists, secured by belts made of sinews. From the belts hung clusters of shrunken human heads. They stood immobile with ferocious, vacant stares.
 
“ I’d say we’re truly fucked, Tariq.”
 
The officer wore an old combat jacket, frayed and unbuttoned, that looked like American issue from the Second World War. On his head was a rusty helmet. He produced a framed photograph and held it out before him like a talisman, facing it towards the aircraft. The whole company stood stock still.
 
“Not necessarily completely fucked, James. Slightly, perhaps.”
 
Abdul explained the idea that had just come to him. These men outside, as wild as they looked, seemed to have quite an aptitude for military discipline. The obvious thing to do would be to disembark from the plane with an air of overpowering authority and just confirm what they already expected.
 
“We can be visiting dignitaries. You—Lieutenant Colonel Crusoe, will inspect the troops after I, Sergeant Major Tariq Robinson, have given them a suitable dressing down and licked them into shape.”
 
“You think that will be our ticket to salvation?”
 
“I don’t know. It might be. But what else can we do? We’ll have to ham it up, like one of those Monty Python sketches. You know, yell at them and then send them off to the cinema.”
 
It was at moments like these that Malarkey felt a surge of respect for Abdul. The depth of his resilience was unfathomable and sprang from a source of wisdom unbounded by knowledge or doubt.
 
“You’ll have to draw on that colonial superiority, James, that arrogance and racism. You have it in you somewhere. You all do. It’s been a bit less visible these days, but it’s still there. You have to epitomise disdain and unassailable confidence. Can you do it?”
 
“I suppose so. Why not? But I should have a swagger stick, or a riding crop.”
 
The men outside remained motionless.
 
Malarkey went back into the cabin to look for something suitable that a passenger might have left behind, but he couldn’t find anything. He would have to go out there without a swagger stick. The thought made him conscious of his arms in an unpleasant way similar to the feeling of insomnia with all its frustration and anxiety. What was he going to do with his hands? It was upsetting to think that his arms would be dangling at his side. Hands and arms were the most crucial symbols of action and intent. To be conscious of their impotence would detract from the impression he needed to make. If he only had some gloves, he could take them off and crush them in one hand, his steely resolve would be apparent—but he did not.
 
On his way back up front, he looked out of the windows at the strange army that awaited them. Then his eye caught the curved handle of a walking stick like the one his father had used in old age. It was jammed against the wall by a window seat. He pulled it out. There was a rubber tip on the end. This was perfect. He would cut it to length using the saw on the Leatherman he always brought on board and had never yet used during the course of his career. It had been waiting for this moment.
 
“Look at this, Tariq.”
 
Malarkey swung the stick under his arm to determine its correct length.
 
“I was just thinking…”
 
“Impressive.”
 
“Thank you. I was thinking that leaving the plane via the emergency chute is a bad idea. We’ll look like a couple of idiots. They’ll probably fall over laughing.”
 
This was a problem. Their plan was contingent on making a dignified exit. Malarkey went back to the cockpit to find his knife.
 
Abdul was beset with fear. He gazed at the people outside. The flames were still burning. The effigies had an elemental cruelty. He wondered if they would be stepping off the plane to imminent slaughter, yet the men outside had an air of expectation. They wanted something. 
 
There was an opportunity to that.
 
He looked beyond them. His eyesight was excellent, as was Malarkey’s—a prerequisite for pilots. The fog had cleared and he could see that they were in an airport of sorts, a simulacrum of an airport. There were buildings that looked like hangars and a control tower—all made from boughs lashed with vines, their roofs thatched with grasses. Outside one of them was an aircraft, fashioned in a similar way, the skin of its fuselage seemingly made from some kind of rattan. It resembled an American B52 from the Second World War.
 
This whole airport was the culmination of prodigious effort and must have taken months, if not years, to construct. It was an image of technology without function, a reinterpretation with the sole purpose of representation. It was a sympathetic magic that had proved most effective—his unexplained presence confirmed it.
 
There was activity in one of the hangars. Six men were struggling with a giant staircase. They were moving it out of the building on rollers made from tree trunks. The two men at the back would take the exposed roller forward and place it under the front of the staircase when the space below it opened up. It was a laborious process, difficult on the uneven ground. It nearly toppled several times. It was strange they were not using wheels. He looked at the B52 but it had no wheels either. They hade made the landing gear to look like the talons of a giant bird.
 
There was a seventh man with them who was doing nothing to help. He just walked alongside the others. As he approached, Abdul could see that he appeared to be a radio operator, or was assuming that role. He wore headphones and carried a large rectangular pack on his back, from which emanated a long antenna, made from a sapling.
 
“I think our problem with the chute has just been solved. They’re bringing out a staircase for us.”
 
Malarkey came out of the cockpit with his swagger stick cut to length and joined Abdul at the window. The men outside were pushing the steps into place.
 
“You know, James, we should probably give them something.”
 
“How many of them are there?”
 
Abdul counted them through the window, “Twenty-four, including the officer.”
 
“Let’s give them all life jackets,” Malarkey was grinning as he turned back into the cabin and began pulling them from beneath the seats and tossing them into the aisle. There was a laptop computer in business class. He checked and saw that the battery was almost fully charged.
 
“We’ll give this to the officer. It should keep him occupied”
 
They stacked the life jackets by the door and readied themselves. Abdul straightened Malarkey’s jacket, patting it down and brushing off some lint with his hands. He still had his eye for style, Malarkey thought. It reminded him of those bygone days, which seemed simpler and more innocent now. They both donned their pilot caps.
 
“Ready, Tariq?”
 
The air outside was warm and sultry. Unfortunately the steps were not quite high enough. Malarkey did his best to negotiate the first empty eighteen inches with dignity. His swagger stick was tucked under his left arm and he carried the computer vertically in his right hand, which left no hands free for balance.
 
When he reached the bottom he went straight to the officer and handed him the laptop. The man had to adjust his grip on the photograph in order to receive it. Malarkey could see that it was a framed, but not glazed, picture of President Eisenhower, or General, as he was at the time. It was barely recognizable, blotched from years of humidity—a disintegrating photograph. Then he took a step backwards and gave a crisp military salute. He was pleased with its effect. The officer was encumbered by the photograph and the computer, attempted a fumbled salute in return and his previously fierce confidence seemed diminished.
 
“Yupela bin kam long ples balus bilong mipela pinis tru.”
 
Malarkey had no idea what he was talking about. He was saved by Abdul who had followed him down, and who also saluted the officer with deft military precision, the long way up and the short way down. Then he turned to the men and bellowed out:
 
“Roit then, you ‘orrible little bleeders!!!”
 
The men threw themselves face down on the ground.
 
Abdul puffed himself up and gave a deafening yell.
 
“On your feet! Where did you learn soldiering? St Trnian’s School for girls? Atten…Shun!”
 
They seemed to understand and got back on their feet, shuffling half-heartedly into line.
 
Malarkey walked briskly over to inspect them. The officer had opened the laptop and was pressing the keys with one finger. The photograph of Ike lay on the ground, staring into the sky.
 
Abdul proceeded to shout at the company before him:
 
“Salute an officer, you fucking bastards!”
 
Malarkey watched as a few of them attempted to salute him. The military salute obviously had little meaning for them. It was really a ridiculous activity, a sort of Tourette’s Syndrome forced on people by authority in its quest to mechanize them for its own purpose.
 
He passed down the line, pausing momentarily in front of each man, just long enough to stare into his eyes, direct his gaze downwards to his feet and then back up to his eyes, all the while allowing his face to express a cold disdain. It was more a deliberate lack of expression or a willful repression, as if his nostrils were filled with a foul stench and he had the self control to show no sign of it.
 
He uttered not a word and moved down the line. He was surprised by his own courage. Any one of these men could have killed him with no compunction and probably eaten him and shrunk his head to the size of a tennis ball.
 
“I think it’s time to hand out the life jackets, Sergeant Major.”
 
“Yes sir.”
 
“Have a couple of chaps fetch them.”
 
Malarkey strode off with his stick still under his arm. He saluted the officer again as he passed but his salute was not returned.
 
“Mipela nidim kago.”
 
He paused and the officer closed the computer. He could have sworn that it looked as if he was on the internet, but that was impossible.
 
“Papa Ike bin promisim givim mipela kago.”
 
He looked around and waved his arm, as if to express his thoughts more clearly.
 
“Mipela wetim longpela taim. Olgeta bagarap.”
 
Though Makarkey couldn’t understand exactly what he was saying, he got the gist of it. He could feel the complaining tone. This was dangerous. Those in positions of authority were always frightened of being usurped. Malarkey could picture the situation. This man wielded power. He had perhaps maintained it with a promise—that one day an aircraft would come, as long as his subjects obeyed him and followed his instructions, which were quite extensive considering the pseudo airport they had built. He was the sole person among them who understood the mystery. He imbued it with a religious significance and he no doubt girded it with the tradition of a golden age—perhaps a folk memory of encounters with American GIs—spinning it all into a legend of a god who has departed but one day will return. Did he believe it himself? Malarkey suspected he did not, or not to the same extent as his followers. Cynicism and expedience were the corrosive bedfellows of power. But now their arrival had confirmed his promise and yet at the same time had eclipsed him. He felt threatened and his response might be sudden and irrational.
 
Malarkey had not slept for over twenty-four hours. He found it difficult to keep up this act of unquestionable superiority. Fear was lurking in the wings. It would be disastrous if he succumbed. He found his way round it by allowing himself to feel genuine dislike. This man was a proto-capitalist and most likely a misogynist too. He had no sense of humour. He took himself and his desires too seriously. Where were all the women? There must be some. He would give them the suitcases the stewardesses had left behind.
 
It was no wonder, he thought, that capitalism had become such a dominant force in the philosophies of economics. It stemmed from the individual desire for survival, second nature for most people, or first perhaps. But it wasn’t inevitable or the best possible system, no matter what claims it made for itself. His idea of individuality was mischievous and contradictory and didn’t require one person’s gain to be another's loss. There was always the sense of wholeness among the separate parts. He attributed it to his Irish forebears, even though they had been the wrong kind of Irish. It was what Abdul referred to as the ‘lark’ in Malarkey. He would never respect authority, including his own, and certainly not this man before him.
 
He turned towards the plane and climbed the steps, half expecting a projectile to hit him between the shoulder blades, but he didn’t look back. He stepped past Abdul who was standing in the open doorway demonstrating how to put on and inflate the life jackets. He did not quite have the dexterous choreography of the cabin crew, who did it every day—adept at their charade of safety in an insecure world, but his sign language and stream of invective seemed to be working. They had all put on their jackets and were busy inflating them, some pulling the cords and others blowing the tubes. They were an odd sight with the shrunken heads swinging below the bulky orange jackets—stranger than life after birth. He noticed that Abdul had drawn the curtains to the cabins, obviously to maintain the mystery when the men had come on board to collect the jackets. He had a beautiful attention to detail for things like that.
 
“Come on Tariq, close the door. We’re going to display the modern jet engine at work.”
 
He brushed past the curtain, went forward to the cockpit and climbed into his seat. Abdul joined him minutes later. He was wondering if he should mention what had happened with the radio operator but he could see it wasn’t the right time. Malarkey had started the engines and was absorbed with the instruments.
 
The radio operator had seemed anxious, as if it was a matter of great importance.
 
“Yu mas harim!”
 
He had handed him the headphones which were the two halves of a coconut shell joined by a strip of hide. Abdul, softening his harsh demeanour had put them on expecting to hear nothing more than the noise from his own head—what he used to think of as the sound of the sea, when he cupped his ears as a child but he heard music instead. It sounded like an ancient Chinese classical orchestra.
 
“Captain James Malarkey here. Air traffic control just told me there’s a plane ahead of us. We are in a holding pattern at the moment but we should be down in ten or fifteen minutes. It is now 13 degrees outside and is raining lightly. Thank you for joining us on board today. We look forward to fulfilling your travel needs in the future.”
 
What he was looking forward to was the shower he would take when he got home. It wouldn’t be the same now that Klaus wasn’t there to greet him with his energetic and uncomplicated love. But it was impossible for a pilot to care for a dog without help.
 
“What are you doing this weekend, Tariq?”
 
“Nothing special. I might do a little gardening.”
 
“Do you want to meet me at The Stanhope? They have live jazz on Sundays. It’s usually pretty good.”
 
“Maybe.”
 
 
© Tom Newton 2024