Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We apologise for the delay. All of the gates are currently occupied. There should be one available in half an hour. In the meanwhile, please feel free to use our in-flight entertainment system. Thank you.

We groaned in unison. After spending 12 hours on a plane, the last thing you want to hear is that there has been a delay. I glanced at the person sitting next to me. Because we all insisted on having window seats, we all ended up sitting in different corners of the plane. I ended up next to a middle aged Caucasian man who seemed to take a dislike to my active bladder because he kept having to get up and let me pass through and I kept apologizing. And then, when we were somewhere above Tehran, the most embarrassing thing happens. I start getting a really really baaad runny nose. Too mortified to ask him to get up and make way so I could dash to the toilet, I sat there, facing the window, hoping to God he couldn’t see my wipe my nose with my fingers and then proceed to discreetly wipe my fingers on my shorts. If he did see it, he did a good job of pretending not to notice.

By the time we alighted, our butts were numb and we were thoroughly cranky. Well, at least I was. We trooped over to the line snaking towards the immigration counters. As we inched forwards, my mood began to lift. We were almost there! We were almost in London! Rick was up to go first so the rest of us waited for other counters to open up so that we could stamp our passports and get the hell out and breathe fresh air. And then, we saw Rick beckoning us over.

“He says we can all check in together. We might as well.” Rick said, as he took our passports and handed them to the man behind the counter who happened to look exactly like Ricky Gervais. He looked through our passports and our flight tickets and, as expected, everything was in order.

He then proceeds to ask us a very odd question.

“Exactly how much money are you carrying?”

We looked at each other in confusion. What does it matter to him how much money we’re carrying?

“Uh, I’m carrying two hundred Singapore dollars, two hundred pounds, and some spare Sri Lankan Rupees.” I recited as I dug through my wallet.

“I’m carrying one hundred Ringgit and three hundred pounds.” Raj said.

After he tallied our total net worth (which sadly, was rather pathetic), he asked us what was the reason for the trip.

“We’re attending a Christian convention.” Raj said pompously. Obviously he thought that that reason alone would hold enough water for “Ricky” to let us through.

Boy, were we in for a surprise.

His face unreadable, Ricky asks us for “document proof of the existence of the convention”, so we scrambled for brochures, receipts, email printouts, even text messages. Piling all our stuff on the counter, we silently waited for his approval. While Ricky was perusing our “evidence”, a customs officer in a tudung approached our kiosk to find out what was the matter. I swear to bob, she looked like a lemon after all the juice had been squeezed out of it. All shriveled and wrinkly and puckered. Lemon and Ricky had a whispered conversation, and then Lemon says something that vaguely sounds like, “Check them.”

We eyed Ricky with trepidation. “Right,” he said as he pointed to a hard plastic bench, “take a seat and we’ll be right with you. We’ll go check to see if the Convention website is legit and then we’ll interview each of you separately.”

“Are you serious?” Raj asked, sounding aghast.

“It won’t take long. Please, take a seat.” Ricky said as he headed off.

I was outraged. We had everything in order. All the documents, flight tickets, receipts, convention passes, everything. Why were we sitting on a bench in Heathrow airport, being publicly humiliated in front the other passengers who managed to pass through customs? They must’ve thought we were fugitives from a third-world country seeking refuge. I felt like standing up on the bench and yelling to the hundreds of people waiting to get through, “LOOK AT US! THEY THINK WE’RE TERRORISTS! IS IT BECAUSE WE’RE INDIAN?!”. That would’ve been complete suicide. After about half an hour, Ricky returns and calls us individually to the counter and asks us a series of questions. When my name was called, I trudged forward, and Ricky fires a series of questions at me.

How old are you? What are you doing right now? How did you hear of this convention? How much money are you carrying? Where are you staying? Do you have family here?

I’m nineteen. I’m studying. I know the organizer. I already told you how much money I’m carrying. I’m staying with my fellow detainees at a hotel. I forgot the name. No, I don’t have the address either. I have an aunt whom I’m going to visit who lives just north of London. Yes I have her address…. somewhere.

It’s been three hours since our holdup at the counter and we’re still sitting and hoping for something to happen. I had taken out my sketchbook to doodle on but it’s hard to do anything when your mind is in such a state of worry. Instead, I covered the page with random squiggles. It was all I could manage for now. We were told off for using our cell phones, so everytime one of the organizers called to find out what had happened to us we couldn’t answer. Or, we’d answer the call, but we wouldn’t hold the phone to our ears just in case one of the officers saw us. Instead, we’d put the phone on our lap and say something like, “Hi Sam, we cannot answer the phone. We’re being held up at Heathrow and they’ve refused to let us through. Please come down and try to clear things up. I repeat, we’re held up at Heathrow Airport, please come down immediately.” It was so ridiculously covert, it would’ve been comical if we weren’t in such distress. I half hoped that there’d be another Timothy McVeigh at the far end of the airport, and after the explosion, the debris, the missing limbs and chaos, I could point at the customs officers and go, “HAH! Guess what? You got the wrong people, you dumb bastards!”

"It's because of them!" Mabel spat as she gestured to our Malaysian counterparts. "If you and I had just checked in seperately, we would've gotten through by now! It's because of their Malaysian passports that we're getting detained!"

Finally, Ricky approaches us and flips through our passports. “Well” he says, “two of you have been cleared to go.”

Mabel leaned over and whispered to me, “It must be us. We’re the ones with the Singaporean passports.”

Ricky hands Raj and Rick their passports back. “You two. You’re speakers at the convention and your details check out. You may leave.”

Mabel looked like she’d just been bitch-slapped. I bit back a smile. Ricky turned to Topher, Jake, Reeta, Mabel and myself. “We need to detain the rest of you. You are facing possible deportation.”

“You’ve gotta be fucking shitting me.” I blurted out.

“Why in the world would we be deported?” Topher demanded. “We’ve done nothing wrong! We have our flight tickets and hotel bookings and convention emails and everything. On what grounds are you deporting us?”

“On the grounds that we don’t have enough evidence to grant you entry to London.” was his curt reply. “Follow me please. And bring your luggage with you.”