Like A Spirit

Inspector Søren Farrugia and his team were tasked with raiding a complex of stables rented out to illegal migrants. Scores of them like sardines in a structure designed for horses.

Undoubtedly, an ungrateful job, that Farrugia knew he’d carry out half-heartedly. After all, these were poor devils. But the law is the law.

The mission over and back at the Station, Inspector Farrugia sat down in the office to sip a coffee with Sergeant Laus. He went through his emails, and found one in the Spam folder he read out to the sergeant.

“Hello, I am sorry to hear the sad news about your death however I am writing this to inform you that your next of kin has initiated a process of recovering your money in our custody, but if this information is not true quickly respond before your money is transfer to the wrong person.”

They both laughed. Then, Søren opened his cabinet, grabbed the whisky and two glasses, and poured a few centilitres of the spirit in each.

“They’re also sending spam emails on behalf of the Corps,” remarked Laus.

“Yeah. Anyway, Laus, cheers! Happy New Year!” “Happy New Year, Sir! Cheers!”

They gulped the whisky, and sat in silence, Søren’s look focussed on an invisible point in the distance.

Then he spoke. “But I can’t help thinking about those migrants,” he said. “They cross the desert. They get beaten up and generally ill-treated in Libya. And then they cross the sea...”

“Yeah,” agreed Laus. “And all this to end up... in Malta... in a stable... abused like slaves.”

“Ah, but they’re not naive. They’re trying to make the best of a dreadful situation. Life dealt them a bad hand, but they play their cards intelligently, bad as those cards are. They risk their lives – worthless lives, having been born in Africa. But they risk them, the only thing they have, to give them value. When you’ve got nothing, it’s easier to risk it all. Their aim is Italy, or further north. In Italy, they get help from the State. Then they come here and work. And they keep dividing their time between the two countries, earning money from each. It’s chaotic, but they’re used to chaos. Africa is Chaos.”

“It’s all part of big plan.”

“Big plan? I wouldn’t know, Laus. It certainly looks like a phenomenon. Many people behaving the same way, giving the impression it’s a plan. What’s for sure, Laus, it accrues benefits to the elite.”

“The elite, Sir?”

“These migrants come from failed States. Their idea of rights is blurred, at best. Their knowledge of trade unionism and workers’ rights is even more nebulous. When they join the workforce in the country that gives them asylum, they dilute the strength of the workers’ movement. They have no real knowledge of the struggles that earned the workers of the developed world their rights and entitlements. Their ignorance corrodes the cohesion of workers and employees in general. As the workers get weaker, the opposite side gets stronger.”

“You’re archaic, Inspector. You talk like a Socialist.”

“Perhaps, Laus. But in reality, I make my analysis without any political agenda in mind. The Socialist wants to change the system, to benefit the workers. I merely observe, and that’s it.”

“One wouldn’t say, Sir!”

The Inspector smiled.

“The Left,” Farrugia continued, “embraced all that liberal stuff we’re exposed to 24/7, forgetting the workers.”

“Yeah.”

Their conversation got truncated by the phone ringing.

“Let’s go,” ordered the Inspector as he hung up. “We’ve been sent to investigate a serious crime.” “What’s it about, Sir?”

“Somebody has just reported a duck is being abused. Serious stuff, Laus.”

“A duck?”

“A duck!”

“What the ––?”

“C’mon, Laus. And mind your language, will you?”

As they sped through the streets, they noticed a muscle car parked by the side of the road, with the hazard lights on and the bonnet open. A middle-aged man was looking intently at the engine.

Inspector Farrugia stopped and asked the man if he needed help.

It was a beauty, a black 1969 Camaro, a relic of a bygone era, when young men were highway stars. Over here, it wasn’t Camaros or Barracudas but Capris and Escorts, sporting 1.3- and 1.5-litre engines with mufflers removed for the engines to sound bigger and more powerful. Farrugia loved Alfa Romeos – a name that, in retrospect, seemed inspired by alpha-male lovers – but he surely wasn’t indifferent to American and American-inspired muscle cars.

Those macho days were over now. The modern world, emasculated by pesticides and fatherless homes, had chosen another, dark highway. These new generations, mused the Inspector, unwittingly check-in at the woke hotel and, when they realise what kind of hotel they’re in, they run for the door, to find the passage back to the place they were before. But the night man tells them to relax. “We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

Farrugia waved bye to the muscle car owner and whisked off like there’s no tomorrow to save the duck, whistling the Eagles tune.

It was January, the beginning of a new year full of the same old crap. Throwing migratory humans out of the country and saving migratory birds, also out of the country.

Life was flowing by, relentlessly like a slow but stubborn river, and silently almost, like a silent spirit hovering through the night sky.

Inspector Farrugia kept asking himself whether life was actually hovering over a cemetery, and whether he had already been buried, in an unmarked grave. He felt like he had lost something he never had.

At least – Søren consoled himself – they had saved the agitated duck. It had quacked with what sounded like gratitude. Even a meek creature like a duck feels gratitude. Even it values its life.