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         [  After Keflavik  ]                        [  By The GNN  ]


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                               AFTER KEFLAVIK
                             by THE GNN/DCS/uXu


That card. That damn card with its printed letters that actually said
nothing, given to me by a strange man at the airport at Keflavik. It
haunted me in my dreams.
   Until I was woken up by that noise. It sounded like a drill. I slowly
got my senses back. A number echoed in my head, followed by "proceed to
gate immediately".
   The noise again. Now it sounded like an alarm clock from hell. I forced
my eyes open and stared at a huge painting of a smiling face smoking a
cigarette, "the original taste", a vision that almost made me throw up.
That  noise again - and now I came to realise that it was the mobile phone
in my  pocket.
   "Where the hell are you!" howled my boss right into my aching head. "You
were supposed to drop a package in London, yester-fucking-day! Where are
you?"
   This was certainly not the time discuss the effects of a devilish
hangover. I quickly looked around to get a grip of the situation, covering
the microphone with my hand while coughing like a victim of TBC.
   "Ahem, it seems like I'm still on Iceland." (Or to be more precise, on a
dirty bench in the smoking lounge of the airport.)
   During the split-second before my boss got screamed "WHAT?" I calculated
that I must have been at this place for two days, constantly drinking duty
free liquor, smoking Marlboro, and trying to understand that damn card.
(Note to readers: the incident in question has been described in UXU-434,
"The Strangest Thing Happened in Keflavik".)
   "WHAT?" he yelled as expected, causing a thunderstorm in my miserable
head. "Have you lost the package? Don't tell me you've lost the package.
I'll kill you if you've lost the package."
   I discovered the package right beside me. Someone had drenched it in
Brennvin and used it as an ashtray; the possibility that it could have been
me was rather high.
   "No."
   "Amazing", he growled. "Bring it to London at once! Then get your ass
over to the States, Boston, my office! There is a little thing in regard to
your future career I wish to chat about."
   Good bye. I did as he said. My mind was a mess during the trip to
Heathrow. I can only recall that I got on the plane, got off, dropped the
package at some office where I also kindly asked if there was some facility
around where I could wash my hands (I puked into the sink), that someone
with a red and grey filtpen had turned FIRE HOSE into TIRED LOSER in the
hallway, and that I suddenly sat on flight BA786 to Logan, staring out the
window where miles and miles of white clouds stretched themselves into
eternity.
   "Yeah, I like to pump some iron", said a male voice beside me.
   "Oh, I can tell", said a female voice beside me.
   The two passengers to my right made conversation. I wondered if suicide
really was painless.
   "I'm going to USA? How about you?" grunted the ape-like man, obviously
ignorant of the well-known fact that transatlantic flights do not offer
their passengers to parachute over Greenland or Canada.
   "Yeah, me too!" answered the woman (who reminded me of some star in a
pornographic movie I watched in Berlin) and exposed her similar lack of
intelligence. They made a lovely couple. My mind wandered away. I wondered
if the man had ever been raped in the rectum and if the woman had ever
considered animal sex.
   My bizarre visions came to an end as I was served red wine, courtesy of
British Airways. I poured the glass and gulped down all of it at once. I
did  it again. And again and again, until I felt like a normal human being.
My  neighbour, on the other hand, got drunk, not to say pissed beyond
belief  merely after two tiny whiskey shots. Amateur.
   "Yeah! You know what!" he said (slightly too loud) to the woman, "I love
America. They take no shit."
   Her IQ allowed her to reply: "Sooo truuue!"
   And so it went on and on and on and on. The man explained that Americans
"had balls", "were not to be messed with", "ruled the world", had tossed
lots of tea into the ocean as "they don't fancy that sissy French shit", et
cetera, forever and ever, and then he suddenly said: "I've been offered a
great job in the land of the free! As a courier, with the entire world as
working field. Headquarters are located in..."
   Courier? Oh please, not in...
   "Boston!"
   My usual luck. As long as he were not hired by...
   "Mayflower Express!"
   At...
   "Hemenway Street!"
   Of course! Of course! Thank you very much, God! The paradigm of idiot
sitting next to me was a future colleague! Someone who would slowly make
his  was up the brown-nose ladder, ride the tidal wave of bullshit, and one
day,  some day, seize my position.
   That day was closer than I thought.
   "The boss said he would fire some guy and let me take his place. Some
alcoholic who went insane on Iceland. Apparently, he failed to deliver a
package in time as he had 'been busy reading a business card'. Can you
believe that?"
   No, I could not. This was not for real.
   "A business card?" repeated the woman in spite of better things to
utter.    "He sat on the airport and read it for two days. Two days! Can
you  believe that?"
   If you only had seen the card yourself, you goddamn...
   "How strange!"
   "He's a madman. Yeah, that's the word, madman. Yeah. A madman."
   Right. I was to be fired. A monkey in a suit would take my place. All
due to a card, a card that said nothing. Wonderful. Right. Of course. Why
not? Thank you, God. Very funny. Hah hah.
   Monkeyman suddenly got to his feet and reached for the cargo compartment
above our heads. A flight hostess saw him and yelled "careful!" but it was
too late. King Kong opened it up and a load of baggage rained over us. The
woman was knocked unconscious by a portable computer, Godzilla himself was
struck to the floor with the help of a heavy bag. Actually, it was my bag.
I had five bottles of Vodka in it. No one shattered. A miracle.
   Then! Another miracle. In the chaos that became the case I detected a
passport on the floor. Closer examination revealed it to belong to King of
the Jungle himself. Cards. Cards? Cards! Suddenly, I thought about cards. A
card had got me into this awkward situation, a card could save me.
   "Who the hell constructed that made-in-taiwan piece of shit!"
   "You must be careful!" explained the hostess. "Baggage move around as we
take off!"
   "Communist!"
   I found a little piece of paper and a pen in my pocket.
   "Is there a problem?"
   "Captain, this man..."
   "I need not be educated by Donald Duck!"
   I began to write the magic sentence that would help me keep my job in
the country of paranoia; thirteen letters, four words.
   "Sir, please sit down, we must give this woman some first-aid!"
"Communist!"
   Eventually things calmed down. The crew stuffed the man and the woman
back into their seats and the baggage back into the compartment. The man
complained about the service ("not worthy a swine"), the woman held a
plastic bag of ice to her forehead, looking rather pale. They made no more
conversation. I handed over the passport to Mr. Monkey. He snatched it from
my hand without saying thanks. That did not matter. I began to feel like a
winner again.
   We landed, exited the plane and lined up for customs ("American citizens
to the left, all others to the right!", blah blah blah.). The stiff guy
behind the plexiglas window wondered about my occupation. Courier, I
truthfully answered. "Been to America before?"
   "One-hundred and fifty-two times."
   The guy opened up my passport. It took him a couple of minutes to find
an empty spot where he could stamp it twice. Bang, bang, then he let me go.
After me came the man who thought he was going to snatch my job. But I knew
he would not. Not this time.
   In fact, never.
   "Business or pleasure?" I heard behind me.
   "Strictly business!"
   Two men, robotic in their movements, black suits and with cold eyes,
emerged from nowhere behind the man. Two seconds later, the three of them
were gone. The skilled customs guy called for the next one in line as if
nothing special had happened. I picked up my luggage and left the airport.
A taxi drove me to Hemenway. My boss explained that I had been That Close -
oh yes, That Close! - of being fired. Unfortunately for the company,
fortunately for me, my future had been temporarily secured.
   You see, the man who was supposed to replace me had been apprehended at
the airport. He had a card in his passport. A magic little card that would
keep him busy for several years within the bureaucratic system of the New
World, the land of the free.

   I WANT TO DEFECT

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 uXu #455              Underground eXperts United 1998              uXu #455
                  Call tHE MiCROLiNKS WHQ -> +32-16-356019
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