Original Prin

by Randy Boyagoda

  Prin made his way to the books section. Other than a few local histories, here was standard airport reading: popular novels and prize-sticker novels; biographies and memoirs and manifestos of retired generals and presidential hopefuls and tech gurus and tech titans and tech prophets and tech prophets of doom; leadership books that promised to “unleash” some things and “conquer” others; histories of the world in seven volcanos, in fifteen paperclips, in five Steven Spielberg movies, in a recipe for jambalaya; books that promised all life’s lessons could be learned from Homer and Virgil and Zuzu’s Petals and marmots and earthworms.

  Prin flipped through a few. He found his situation in some books and didn’t want to read on, or he failed to find it, and wondered what was the point of distracting himself. He’d fly home with nothing to read. He would tell her that, too.

  Prin returned to the counter, paid for everything at an automated checkout, and declined to have the bookend boxed. He put the purses in his book bag and left with the bookend in his free hand.

  Wende was waiting for him outside the store, drinking a smoothie. She smiled in a sad way and waved in a very small way. Because of his bag and the bookend, he physically couldn’t wave back, thank God. But shouldn’t he, at least, smile? Wasn’t there a seeking-mercy-and-forgiveness in her smile? And if he was so desperate for Molly to respond to him, couldn’t he at least offer to Wende what—

  “GUARDS! STOP HIM! SOMEONE! STOP HIM!”

  Prin turned around and put the bookend down to find his receipt. It must have looked like he’d just walked out of the store with it. But the clerk wasn’t pointing at Prin. She was pointing at a man in a drab cloak and black balaclava who was jogging towards Wende. He stopped and pulled up a long black gun and shot her and she fell with a look on her face like someone had just pulled a giant stitch out of her back. Then he stepped close and shot her some more. He stumbled backwards with the recoil and the gun slipped down and he rubbed his shoulder. He looked around and began jogging again.

  More men, many more men in drab cloaks and black balaclavas now filled the terminal, guns firing, their barrels waving away screaming hijab women and their shrieking, clutching children. The gunmen jogged around shooting and people were screaming and glass was shattering and everything and everyone was falling down everywhere.

  Running backwards Prin bumped against the wall beside the Duty-Free shop. There was a big potted plant on the floor. He slipped behind it. The plant was thick and bushy. How long until they found him? He smelled burning and hot metal and sulfur and piss. His crotch was soaking.

  He tried to say a Hail Molly for Wende’s life and another that he be spared but couldn’t remember because a gunman was there, right there. He shot up the liquor bottles in the Duty- Free. The sacrilegious manspreader sprinted out and tripped on someone’s luggage. He got up and the gunman shot him. He walked over and saw the bikini blonde rippling across the front of the writhing young man’s long white shorts, and he shot and shot. Then he just stared down at the bodies.

  When the gunman looked up he’d see Prin. His head was pure and empty. So was Prin’s. Not it wasn’t. His only thought was that Wende was dead and now Molly need never have known. Damn. Just then he felt something open up near his chest. In it. All this noise of gunfire and casings dropping on the floor—had he been shot without noticing? No. So what was this sudden blackness come into him? It was that in these, his final moments, that, that, had been his only thought. Not for Wende’s soul. Not for Molly’s mercy. Not for his girls, or for all of them in the life to come, a life without him, and for him a life without them, but that it was unfair he had told Molly something that now never needed to have been told.

  Also: God, how dare You ask me to come here, for this!

  Damn You.

  Damn me for damning You.

  Damn me for all of this dare.

  The gunman looked up and Prin pressed against the wall and sobbed and held his breath, but then another gunman ran past and called and the nearby gunman stepped over the dead young man and slipped a little and ran on.

  Prin sobbed for air and almost made a sign of the cross but then jumped back against the wall at the sound of sirens coming on—bells ringing and also a metallic whining. There wasn’t as much gunfire immediately around him. Suddenly, there was no noise at all. The lights went out and everything was grey-brown. Prin peeked out from behind the potted plant. No one moved. Here was his chance.

  To do what, exactly?

  His ears were ringing and he took off his glasses and wiped his face.

  Hide in a better place than behind a potted plant, at least.

  Eyes going everywhere, heart gorging his throat, he held his breath and stepped out and they starting shooting and he jumped back and breathed out hard. But this time the gunfire wasn’t near him. He held his breath and stepped out again and shook and convulsed with the noises and ran into the Duty-Free shop.

  Kicking glass and shells, he slipped through broken bottles and amber puddles and goldfish and blood from a limp, velour-covered arm stretched out on the floor. The Nephew’s. Prin looked around for Rae. Then he almost tripped, dear Jesus he’d stepped into an empty baby stroller fallen on its side.

  Not goldfish. Goldfish crackers. Those were a child’s goldfish crackers. That child’s. Prin stopped and crouched and listened for crying. In vain. Then, crying, he looked for a body. Blunt-shock wrong was Wende’s death and who knows how many more in the airport. Sad, tragic, wrong.

  But who shoots a baby in a stroller?

  Then, closer to the back of the store in the murk-light, he saw bright red flashing lights. Coming from a shoe, an empty shoe. Hunched over and now smelling alcohol and perfume, Prin went looking for the child. A little boy standing all by himself biting his fingers raw so no bad men could hear him crying. He checked behind a dark, wooden display of single malt Scotches. There was no one hiding there.

  Someone must have picked up the child. Someone good, God, let it be someone good who picked up the child and ran from here and be safe now and at the hour of her death, and let that hour be long and far from here and now, amen.

  Rae.

  Rae had the child.

  Gunfire again.

  This time it came from closer. There was yelling, too. Why were they yelling now? Was it even them? Was it the Dragomans army? Would they know Prin was innocent? He was brown and he had a beard but he had his passport and didn’t he have a rosary his mother made him always carry a rosary when he travelled but he didn’t tell her this time but wasn’t there one in his jacket pocket and he went to check but then gunfire started again. This time it was coming from the far side of the terminal. The yelling became more frantic, and then suddenly everything went silent. There was a scratchy walkie-talkie noise and then everyone started shooting everywhere.

  He looked around the shop and saw a plain door in a far corner. An exit? Prin ducked down and held his breath and ran there and pushed through and the door closed right after him and now he was standing in the dark.

  37

  He took out his phone and turned on the flashlight and waved it around—rack after rack of bottles, liquor and perfume, and barrels and boxes of candy. There was no back door to the outside. He went down one aisle and then turned off the flashlight and made his way to a back corner. If they found him here, he had nowhere to go. He got up and moved into a middle aisle. His ears were ringing, clanging like someone had run a railroad crossing through his brain!

  He sat down behind a fortress wall of giant Toblerone bars. He hung his head down into his lap and tried to say the “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep” prayer. Prin wept like a little boy.

  He stopped crying, jerked up, and checked his phone. He still had data coverage and 20 percent battery life.

  God please, let her respond now!

  The call didn’t go through.

  He could at least writ
e something to Molly, something to the girls. Only he couldn’t type. His fingers were wet with sweat and crying; his shirt was drenched and the screen wouldn’t respond to his tapping, except in the upper corner. He couldn’t even type “love u,” so Prin sent Molly a blank message from this, the dark end of his life.

  He hoped, he prayed she would understand he’d tried, he’d tried very hard. He’d always tried very hard. And he was sorry. So sorry. Because what exactly had he tried so hard to do? Christ, was it only to say look at me, everybody; look at me, going everywhere? Look at me.

  A long time, maybe an hour, maybe two hours after the message finally showed as sent, Prin heard gunshots from much closer, from inside the Duty-Free shop. More bottles shattered and then the door to the stockroom opened and right away slammed shut and Prin couldn’t move, he couldn’t move, even if he wanted to he couldn’t move. Something was pressing him firmly against the Toblerone. The pressure let up when he heard weeping, terrified weeping, another man’s terrified weeping.

  Someone else was hiding with him in the stockroom now.

  He had to get the person away from the door before they heard him in here. Both of them, in here. Prin stood up and stepped into the aisle and turned on his phone’s flashlight.

  “Quick, come back here,” he said.

  The man looked over and sucked back his crying and jumped to his feet and banged against the wall and then against his chest. One of the gunmen!

  Prin dropped his phone but the light was shining up at him and the man came charging down the main aisle towards him and he was too close and he pulled a gun out from the back of his pants and Prin asked God please to watch over them and then he dropped to his knees and, closing his eyes, felt a force surge through his body and flame through his heart as to his killer he declared,

  “La illah ila Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah!”

  The man stopped short. He considered Prin for a moment. This was a very long moment. He swallowed. They both swallowed. The gunman motioned for Prin to get up and step back then he stepped forward and picked up Prin’s phone and flashed it at him.

  “Wait, bro, you’re one of us?” he asked.

  Tears streaming, Prin opened his eyes.

  “La illah ila Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah!” he said.

  The young man turned off the flashlight and put Prin’s phone in a pocket and put his gun away and pulled down his balaclava and reached out in the dark and put his free hand on Prin’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. La illah ila Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah. It’s cool. We’re on the same team, bro,” he said.

  Prin stood up and wiped the tears from his eyes. Just then, emergency lights went on at far intervals across the stockroom ceiling. In the dim yellow light Prin looked at the young man, who was also wiping tears from his big brown eyes. He was trying to do this quickly.

  Prin wanted to scream and scream and scream and scream. But instead he listened. In his head, passing through his ears still ringing he could hear two children, two of his children, playing piano. It was a duet they had written themselves, for that year’s spring concert. Philomena and Chiara had sat at far ends of the same bench, one playing high notes that were answered by the other playing low notes. They called their song “It’s the end. No it’s not: The Sisters’ Duelling Duet.”

  The song consisted of this argument, which came out as three high notes followed by three matching low notes. The song was sixty seconds long and the game of it was to get the last notes in before time was up. They had played it together, had played it with each other and against each other for hours that spring, sixty seconds at a time.

  Prin’s sixty seconds weren’t up yet.

  Here and now, this was the man he had to be.

  “Wait. If we’re on the same team, bro, why are we both hiding back here instead of going out there to, er, to wage holy jihad?” Prin asked.

  “But—”

  “Fuck buts. Why were you just crying? Why aren’t we both out there, killing the, the damned infidels?” Prin asked.

  The young man’s face was blank. He stepped back. He put up his hands.

  “I know, I just, this is my first time, bro, okay? And I just made a move, I was actually coming up along the side to take down some of the security guards but then I dropped my gun, I mean my gun jammed and I didn’t want to use my back-up, whatever. So I ducked in here just to regroup. But wait. What about you?” he asked.

  “What about me?” Prin asked.

  Outside, the gunfire was now sporadic, almost bored-sounding.

  “But what about you, I asked,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” Prin asked.

  “Well, I don’t see you out there. You’re just another bad Muslim in an airport, as far as I can tell. How do I know you’re truly fighting for the khilafah? Something tells me you’re not. Something tells me you’re just pretending. And I definitely know you pissed your pants. I can smell it, bro. Nasty,” he said.

  He pulled his balaclava back up over his nose.

  “Yeah, bro, how do I know you’re even Mutadayyin Muslim?” he asked.

  Prin snorted and shook his head and stepped up close to the gunman, who stepped back a little.

  “Praise Allah and peace be upon His name. Actually I came to Dragomans today for jihad. But how could I tell anyone, when all of this starts just fifteen minutes after I walked off the plane? Bro, who’s going to let me interrupt and explain? Think about it. If you hadn’t dropped your other gun—”

  “It jammed!”

  “Right. If it hadn’t jammed, what would you have done when you found me in here?” Prin asked.

  The young man was pleased with this question.

  “Exactly. But Praise Allah and Peace Be Upon His Name, you found me …We are brothers!” Prin said.

  “You took a plane from where? And who are you in touch with here? The fuck invited you? Who said okay? Give me just one name,” he said.

  “It’s complicated,” said Prin.

  “No it’s not, bro,” he said.

  “Yes it is, okay? The man who invited me works for Dragomans national security. I met him online. I’d tell you his name but then if we’re caught—”

  “Never going to happen. Trust me. So what’s the name?” he asked.

  “Rafik. He works inside the government complex, checking cars, VIP infidels, bro,” said Prin.

  “Never heard of him,” he said.

  “I believe you, bro. Why won’t you believe me?” asked Prin.

  “Because I just don’t see how you showed up here like this. It’s too easy,” he said.

  “It’s complicated,” said Prin.

  “Bro, this is holy jihad, not fucking Facebook! Look at me. No complications. I took a plane from Boston. Abu Osman al-Helsinki invited me,” he said.

  “Bro, you don’t believe that’s a real name, do you? Are you sure you didn’t fall for some CIA plot and lead them straight to our brothers?” asked Prin.

  “Fuck you, bro! My sheik’s the real deal, okay? I haven’t met him yet, but he accepted my bay’a after I asked for like a year online. And then his followers became my brothers, my true brothers, the muwahhidi of the new khilafah, and they told me I will meet him in person and he will accept my bay’a in person right after we purify this airport, Insha’Allah. And he said I could also go see my grandmother. Maybe. And what about you?” he said.

  “For sure, Insha’Allah. Always, Insha’Allah. So you grew up in Boston?” asked Prin.

  “Nashua, New Hampshire. Kuffar capital of the world, bro. You? Again, stop stalling or I’ll un-jam my other gun on your bullshitting ass. What about you?” he asked.

  “Toronto,” said Prin.

  “Blue Jays suck. Raptors suck. TFC is bullshit soccer. Drake’s totally annoying,” he said.

  “Yeah, right, for sure. So
what are doing here? Do you want to lead the way back out?” he asked.

  Prin would follow behind him, grab the nearest bottle, and brain him. Why had he dropped the bookend? This man was maybe ten years his junior. The beard made it hard to tell. They were about the same height, the same shape, the same paler shade of brown. But even through his cloak he looked gym-thick in the chest and arms.

  But Prin felt the songs and lives of his children surging through his arms.

  “For sure. Yeah. Let’s do this. But hold up. If you’re for real—”

  “I’m for real,” said Prin.

  “Then lead the way,” he said.

  “But look at me, brother, and look at you. What can I fight the infidels with? You have that other gun, at least,” said Prin.

  “It’s a handgun, bro. I’m kind of in the same situation, right? What am I going to do, out there on my own, when my clip’s out?” he asked.

  “So what do we do, instead?” asked Prin.

  “Obvious. Salah,” he said.

  “Right. Salah,” Prin said.

  “Salah,” he said.

  They stood there in silence.

  “You think it’s … the right time?” Prin asked.

  What was Salah? Time to eat? Time to pray?

  “Yeah, by now it’s probably time for Zuhr, noon prayer, I’m guessing,” he said.

  “Of course! And we pray for victory!” said Prin.

  “No, brother. We pray because we pray. But we don’t pray for victory, we pray because we pray. That’s what we do before Allah, Peace Be Upon His name. Amiright?” he said.

  “You’re right,” said Prin.

  38

  Prin followed him up and down the aisles looking for prayer rugs. The closest thing they found was flattened Danish shortbread cookie boxes.

  The young man poured out bottles of Icelandic Glacier Water on their hands for ritual cleansing, paused to calculate something, and then arranged their prayer mats on the floor, towards Mecca. He knelt down on one and motioned Prin to kneel down on the other. They were down on the ground, far away from any head-smashing bottles.