Hal at the Gates of Heaven
notes on frequent flyer's biometrics
TAKEOFF
Hell is a place on earth. To escape our personal hells, we invented airplanes. Up to the sky and far above. If there would be a time in history I’d like to have a taste of, it would be the times of humans making the first aircrafts. It is an unimaginable thrill to think of a clanky can galloping the sky, running on propellers, fuel and faith.
Seeing the land below you turn into patches of green, blue, yellow, eating your first icy clouds, developing a sense for physics though the air pressure chasing around your ears, the cold, the wind in your eyeballs.
Ultimate freedom, becoming a bird. my last name (Tica) means bird, there must be something to it.
Higher up, chase after the sun, like Icarus!
Would Icarus need a passport to fly today? if so, maybe he wouldn’t fry into a portion of KFC, but take the wings of a business class with Daedalus, meal included.
Even with such luxury, every experience of touching the sky in a flying bus has it’s security. The gate. The gate before the departure gate. The stretched fence maze, do-not-skip-the-line Styx.
Gates, again, are not there to ask if a one-year old baby is ready to be initiated into ear buzzing floating cradle that defies gravity and fuels the sky. They are not there to wipe the tears of distant families, friends and lovers. They are not there to say don’t fly that much, sit down and take a train, we’ll burn this earth before you reach retirement.
They are there to make sure we know that airspace is a militant area. Aerial sense of freedom is tightly controlled by the defenders of the land. Before going into flight mode and letting go of control, let’s see what’s in your pockets!
No liquids over 100ml, no sharp objects, no flammable objects, no weapons, no bombs. Maybe a lighter can be negotiated. Or a razor, or pleaaase let me keep my pair of scissors.
Maybe we all just wanted to fly to explode somewhere up there. But, control is as necessary as preemptive, and it’s not our airspace to decide upon. We all just want to fly. Or panic. Maybe the pilot is a lunatic, maybe a bird hits the propeller. Maybe the plane is a bit old, there is a storm incoming, but it won’t go to space, I guess we’ll be fine.
Safe, soft and unarmed, chugged your last sips of liquid… duty-free glows in the distance, cloud of perfumes luring you into the pre-airspace sickness. But, before you get a stick of toblerone for your niece, you need to find your passport - border is a border. Yet, there is a shiny addition to the protocol.
It’s Hal 9000! a biometric photographer at the gate, finally our robot, that flew into space already in 1968. or in 2001? Kubrick, was it even real? The moon landing? Ah, forget it, where is your passport?
One-eyed black monolith pan gives you a piranha fish-eye stare, searching for the geometries of your tired bloated face that took the farewell party one bottle too far.
Far from a red carpet, you are rather a scanned good on a cashier's desk, a talking barcode. Hal needs you to step back. One step, two steps, look again, you sloppy carton of milk number 298177647839.
Hal at the gate, heaven beside you.
Oops, gate locked. beep, red X, step back, pose for Hal again. beep, X, again. beep, X, stupid human, pose for Hal! Us, humans, need to train for these encounters, not like engineers can come up with a better recognition system. Maybe it is a relief that real-life factors always make a mess of computer predictions. For now, yes, annoying but humane, always fun to mess with the machine until the machine makes you miss your overpriced flight with a window seat reservation, sheer luxury. Maybe they should add a crutch for the chin or some eye-stretching hooks to be sure our faces are placed right to meet the demands of Hal 9000.
Algorithmic-Cyclop-Bureaucrat is a bit shortsighted. Again, here we are looking around for an officer, someone who’s legitimate in this line of stable-like glass doors at the gate of Hal[s]. Officer jumps in, nods their head, tries to instruct and push you, the dirty milk carton with a wrinkled barcode through it. How much do a border police officer and a cashier have in common? How much do humans resemble a milk carton? We can both be lactose-free, too.
LANDING
In May of 2025, in London, after landing, I encountered a once-in-a-lifetime royal welcome.
Passport check, border control, again, UK/EU as one, and me the other, NON-EU category. UK/EU, straight and to the left to meet a row of Hal’s Gates. I walk alone to the right, feeling slightly uncomfortable, which is a feeling that follows since your non-eu identity was first revealed in the outside world, and declared you shall never be mixed with other citizens. Looking with a bit of jealousy in my heart to the left in this mass of people having a greeting at the Hals party, I drag myself alone and ashamed around a tall fence and a plastic banner, that could easily decorate a horse race track, and I stop in awe.
I see a maze, and a soft green carpet, empty. At the end of it, booths 10-17, each one with a border police officer sitting in their uniforms.
Are these royal gardens? Is this an official welcome?
I walk through the queuing snake and come to the end of the guiding fence. Decision fatigue hits. I have 8 booths to choose from, which one should I pick? Do they pick me? Is anyone smiling or waving at me?
Jesus, it’s a border, why would they smile and wave.
Should i wave to them?
I always practiced the way the queen of england was waving. I found it immensely hilarious.
Booth 16, I see a smile and a nod, booth 14, booth 13!
I think officers from 10 to 17 clearly saw my shock and awe, spiced with a freeze of a decision fatigue in the joy of the moment, while I think of a slow palm rotation around the joint between the arm and the hand.
All these humans here waiting to check my identity, travel history, intentions in the UK, my fingerprints!
But I can choose only one, how difficult is that. I am a proud non-eu citizen who is privileged enough to have 8 officers wait for my attention, while other 100 citizen flyers are fighting with a gate of stubborn Hals. I wanted to give my passport to all these human officers, in order from 10 to 17. But, one was enough, I can’t even recall which one I’ve picked. I passed the check, and I got an extra smile!
I felt like i could rate my experience at the airport with big green smiley face, or five stars, hearts or however we are designed to express our customer satisfaction of life. Hal should have a user rating board on it, wouldn’t last a day with such attitude if it would have a manager.
Fuck you, Hal, the middle management will come after you too.
