The Qatar Airways Quick Pass

An epiphany struck Vaughn Plibersek during his morning ritual of Turkish coffee and camel cigarette: he was finally over Rebecca. He smiled down from his balcony to the women on the suburban Doha street, found that niqaabs left a bit too much to the imagination and furthermore, shit, aren't they the girls going to the school down the road? Oooh fuuuck, Vaughn, they'd be 14 or something, don't be a fucking creep. It was time to return to Columbus. Vaughn chained a second smoke and, watching it wisp, a second epiphany: it had been the past two years where he developed this addiction. The prospect of a long flight home, now with cravings, made his balls tighten.

An esotericist, Vaughn counted amongst Qatar's large expatriate workforce, albeit from the smaller pool of specialised workers recruited from around the globe. He pitched the Qatar Airways Quick Pass to his employer. Clutching this proposed artefact and reciting the correct Arabic incantation would induce a brief blackout in the Qatar Airways passenger, similar to a videogame 'fast travel'. The passenger would not experience their flight and, after what felt like two minutes, regain full consciousness in the smoking area of their airport of arrival, with a half-memory of Nasser Goes To Space.

Vaughn's employers had been sceptical: 'Why should we entrust you with the team and resources to develop this product?'

Vaughn bared his soul: 'I remember little of the nightly arguments that were the last four months of my marriage, because of my nightly drinking. That's why I moved here, for more conservative morrows. That's why I am uniquely suited to understanding Mahra Bani Tanim.'

Bkaluryws Dayima, an autobiographical epic poem written by Bani Tanim between 1903 and 1910, is key. Bkaluryws Dayimaopens with the sun peeking over sand dunes and the rogue Bedouin listing his organs - stomach, spleen, lungs - as they start to function. Then the poem becomes blippy, like a boozy precursor to Burroughs' cut-out technique, as Bani Tanim goes about his day: chatting up girls in speakeasies, vaulting fences with goat underarm, engaging hippopotamus in unarmed combat and theological debate, with no explanation of how he got from point A to point B, aside from stanzas of the protagonist swaying wildly on camel's back with bottle of saké in hand.

The Quick Pass' development hit a three-month road block until the team of six, sitting around the break room table with mouths agape, realised that Bkaluryws Dayima synced perfectly with Tij, by Battles. Aside from (Mette) Kristen having to take two weeks off due to existential panic ('How is the song in the heart of a last-century Bedouin from two-thousand-and-fucking-seven?'), the Quick Pass' development became a simple matter of transferring the collective break-room epiphany into a product more suited to modern tastes.

The prototype Qatar Airways Quick Pass is a 10 by 25 cm card with brand font and colours offering to 'get (you) where you want faster' which, technically, false advertising. The Quick Pass has been tested on a passenger flying from Qatar to Australia and seems to have worked too well - the passenger, in their fast-travel black-out, has left the Quick Pass behind, long forgotten as they explain their interpretation of Nasser Goes to Space to Roland the Driver. Luke, one of the cleaning team contracted to clean the plane, finds the Quick Pass whilst removing  rubbish from between a business class seat and the adjoining storage console.

Luke does not realise the worth of what he holds but, with a slight wriggling in his kidneys that he does not recognise as mythic resonance, he pockets the Quick Pass. This breaches quarantine law and legally constitutes theft, but norms similar to 'finders keepers' interpretations of adventurae maris salvage law exists amongst these cleaners: items of value such as wallets, phones or jewellery are handed to lost-and-found, whereas items unlikely to be claimed such as small change, fancy pens or cigarettes are taken. What's the deal with airline food? Some of it is pretty good and it is just going to get thrown out anyway. Except the popcorn. The popcorn is shit.

The Emirates Airline plane landing has been significantly delayed and so the cleaners return to base, a warehouse outside the airport, for a half-hour unpaid break. Luke microwaves coffee and rolls a cigarette of tobacco and catnip - drugs screens do not detect nepetalactone. He heads outside to his clique but Chelsea quietens to a whisper and slightly hunches over.

Luke: 'Private women's talk?'

Luna giggles: 'Yes.'

In Yvette's eyes: Todd is pulling a Mahmud.

Pulling a Mahmud n. -v.t. To become utterly and obviously infatuated with Chelsea.

Partial list of Mahmuds Pulled, in chronological order:

·         Mahmud, the namesake, who ran a commentary on how Chelsea was looking nice or working hard on any given day. Three months.

·         On his first week, Lombard had requested of all female co-workers younger than 40 to be 'set up with a sister' but it was clear who his favourite was. Complaints were slipped to management. Two weeks.

·         Jeremy interjected 'You're funny, Chelsea' at most opportunities and, more often, at inopportune moments. Lasted eight months before finding his true love: cosplaying as Spiderman.

Luke knew of this trend when he started to notice that Chelsea's quite pretty today, and friendly, and smart, and nice and ooh shit, I've taken the baton. I'm Pulling a Mahmud. Luke suspected that one reason why Chelsea had started hanging with his clique was that she appreciated the novelty of a male co-worker not showing her special attention and so, wanting to maintain his status as the workplace Quiet Guy, vented his feelings with nightly drinking.

Luke's kidneys gave an exhausted cheer when, two months later, Todd began chattily following Chelsea like a lost puppy somehow tasked with vacuuming a Jetstar. Then Luke felt smug superiority, watching Todd embarrass himself with his unrequited adoration, female co-workers trying to interject themselves between Chelsea and he in order to alleviate the awkward experience. In later weeks, however, with Todd's infatuation not letting up, Luke began to feel sorry, for both Chelsea and Todd. This is in the back of Luke's mind as he smokes his catnip next to the ashtray of the Department of Biosecurity car park, watching a distant fox be chased under fence by a cat.

Break finished, back on the tools, seventeen fluoro-yellow shirted cleaners carry equipment in a single file down the aerobridge to an Emirates Airlines Boeing 777. Heading down the plane, Luke throws a glance over shoulder and meets Chelsea's discrete gave, pointed upwards from a  privately annoyed frown downcast to seats she tidies - Todd has finagled his way into working next to her and is already pestering vis-à-vis her drink of choice. Luke sees the answer in her eyes: one not with you, thanks but no thanks, currently working, as you should be.

Luke climbs up to crew rest, a squat corridor of ten alcoved beds. He works - removing rubbish, replacing blankets, redressing (visibly used) pillows - alone in the enclosed quarters. In the pocket of the third right-hand bed, Luke finds a half full packet of cigarettes branded with the Java program logo. He makes to pocket them when he notices an air hostie at crew rest's entry, smiling at him. She lifts the left hem of her cream skirt and Luke's eyes instinctively follow the long leg up to a thigh-holstered handgun.

Julielle, the air hostie: 'Gimme my fuckin Ghost Tobacco.'

Luke has questions but, priorities and all, instead slides the smokes down the corridor to Julielle, who sighs grateful: 'Sorry I threatened to shoot you in the prostate. It's that CatScript is tight at the moment.'

Luke has more questions and this time he picks one: 'Why are you still holding up your skirt?'

Julielle shrugs: 'You're not my type.'

One more: 'Huh?'

Julielle is wearing Semblance, by Branlette, an eau de parfum made by Carmichael St Carmichael, the resident Nez of that time. The product brief, the perfume's original inspiration, had been a two metre line of cocaine. Carmichael had sourced an ingredient from every continent (Q: Antarctica? A: Penguin shit dropped in the summer night and bleached by the winter's day.) and Branlette released a limited batch of 100 bottles of Semblance. This perfume has since acquired a cult following due to magical properties: Semblance attaches itself to and sharply alters a woman's pheromones. When a woman, wearing Semblance, is attracted to a man, the perfume works on an airborne chemical level to make said woman sharply more attractive to said man. Conversely, when a woman is not interested, Semblance dulls the pheromones and, therefore, that man's interest. This, not the gun, is why Luke, who understands on an objective level that Julielle is an attractive and glamorous woman, is not getting a loin rush.

Another question: 'So it's a creep repellent?'

'Noooo. It is not a deus ex machina for stopping unwanted attention.' Julielle lowers her skirt, softening. 'It does provide some social ease with incompatible men.'

Luke's face tightens and Julielle groks with a gossipy smile: 'The cute blonde? The tall guy?'

Head back and loudly relieved: 'It's obvious. Everyone knows. Everyone knows that everyone knows, except for him.'

Julielle groks harder, inspiration behind her eyes: 'Do you have the Qatar Airways Quick Pass?'

Semblance has helped Julielle find the type of man she is most attracted to or, rather, be chased by that type of man which, quite the surprise at first, is ghosts. She once tried to drunkenly explain the appeal of ghost-sex to a close friend:

'You know how a ghost, like, can pass through you? Imagine, like, imagine a man being inside you, while he's inside you.'

 A shared cigarette of Ghost Tobacco is an apt post-coital ritual, giving Julielle's ephemeral lays some mass, form, to allow for pillow talk and spooning. Air hostie work has Julielle travelling widely and often, allowing her to meet lots of spunky ghosts, which means she has been smoking more and an addiction has crept up on her. On a Dubai hotel balcony, before working the flight to Australia, she itched for nicotine and so opened a Catnip Page, smoking the complimentary catnip and tobacco. She half-mindedly perused the single-page catalogue of magic items on the black market and the Quick Pass, going for ₵$845, caught her attention. The appeal is obvious - being able to fast-travel through a flight is more useful to someone who flies often and who works throughout their flying. The Quick Pass offers Julielle the ability to 'Skip. Through. Work.'

Julielle is willing to exchange her bottle of Semblance, two thirds full, for the Quick Pass. She has a ghost in every port and knows how to find them.

A deal is struck. Luke gives the QAQP to Julielle, who leaves crew rest to find Chelsea with a coy 'Hiii there. You know what would smell real nice on you?' Luke finishes his work in another ten minutes and, with the plane clean on time, the team files back onto the aerobridge.

Todd stands next to Luke: 'You played any good video games lately?'

Chelsea is last off the plane and Luke notices that her hair looks good when it's down, wavey, has an effect of framing the face that makes her quite doe eyed, her eyes are quite beautiful actually. And her boobs! Oooooh shit. I need a beer. A lot, a lot, of beer.