“Despite my efforts” they said they would still like to have me on board. Elaine walked me across the street to a hotel where many of the attendants of the meeting were staying. She gave off an impression of disappointment and hung her head low as she walked, and I struggled to keep pace with her.
I hadn’t known her long, but she was the closest thing to a friendly face that I had here. We had talked stiffly in the car ride, earlier in the morning. It seemed that she had a lot of faith in me, in my potential of whatever in fuck’s name was going on. Or perhaps it was just faith in her results. It was hard to capture her attention for long without losing her to a flurry of frantic keystrokes in her laptop or realizing that her mind was occupied with ten other things and your words flew one ear and out the other.
So I followed her in silence, in confusion, in disappointment at the unknown. We walked through the dark parking lot, across the street with no cars, into a parking lot the same as the last. We entered the lobby of the hotel, got rooms, mine on the 3rd floor, her’s on the 6th.
She handed me my keycard and I walked for the elevator. She stopped me and said she was having a drink at the bar before heading up. Would I join her?
The bar was in a contemporary Japanese style with steel bamboo leaves shielding the bar stools from the artistically painted sun. The server wore a white and red marked bandana, while clothed in a loose silk garment. Without saying a word, he filled a small jug from hot sake dispenser, and placed the jug between us.
She poured a cup first, and was ready for a second before my cup was even full. Then a third, and a forth. Then she started talking, and I listened.
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Presentation
Saturday evening I was guided into a small conference room.
When you will have made him a body without organs,
then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions
and restored him to his true freedom. - Gilles Deleuze
When the quote appeared on the projector the audience roared into applause. Throughout the day I had become reliant on Elaine, following her from room to room in the giant complex building, signing documents and being introduced to men and women with foreign sounding names that I could not quite place.
I was quite discouraged when her abandoned chair beside me was suddenly occupied with a man with a curled mustache smoking a thick cigar. He gave me a large grin and a puff of smoke as he sat down and turned his attention to the front.
The audience of several dozen quieted as Elaine walked to the podium, and began to introduce the aspects of cognitive memory, dependency on association, and various philosophical jargons that left very little information for me to gather through acuteness alone.
The thought passed that maybe these were investors in this project I had become tangled in, yet what reason would they have to be meeting now… with me… so close to the beginning of it all.
Elaine walked to the side of the stage and the conference continued one speaker after another. After each the speech, the man with the mustache beside me showed all his teeth in a massive grin, and blew a cloud of smoke, then stood and applauded loudly.
At some point in the day I noticed from a distance that a few of the audience members were drinking from martini glasses. Something was unusual about the liquid that filled the glasses. At first I had thought it was the dim lighting to accommodate the projector, but it drew my attention from the monotonous lectures up front.
A small man in a server’s outfit was bringing a single martini glass to each of the audience members, resting on a circular plate, with a napkin draped over the top of the glass. As he moved he kept a hand in position above the concealed glass in preparation to catch any movement or bumps along the trip. This was very unlike any bar patron I had witnessed who was easily adept at carrying half a dozen assorted drinks through a crowded chamber without effort or worry.
The man would deliver the drink, and then stand off to the side as the recipient would take a sip. The woman on the side of the aisle in front of me was currently sipping it down slowly, taking effort to get each gulp out of the glass as if it had the consistency of Jell-o.
The liquid itself scared me. The ooze inside the glass reminded me of black oil, yet it writhed with red lines that seemed to hold the substance in form like the thick veins of a pulsing organ. My racing imagination summoned images of a substance made from the black tar scraped from a lifetime smoker’s lungs in an anti-smoking campaign, fermented and bottled to perfection.
The lecture went on, my attention focused on each sip of the black and red goo drizzling into the lips of each occupant of the row in front of me. Each glass finished resolving in the little man collecting the glass, then returning with another for the next guest in the row. Each time waiting for the guest to finish the glass before moving on to the next person.
I looked at their mouths, black and vile. I looked at the front screen, verbose expressions and scientific charts… The man in the overcoat received his glass, and slowly sipped it down… The chart on the board had arrows pointing to the temporal lobe on a model brain… The women with white gloves folded her reading glasses and took a sip... The brain on the screen began to rotate… the man with the mustache beside me took his glass from the plate and slammed it with one sip… the screen showed guns firing, showed trees decaying in fast forward, and then in reverse, showed people waving and then being dropped into the sea…
I turned around, the little man offered me his tray, offering the concealed drink under the tray. The little man. The little man. I pulled the napkin off.
The glass was empty. I looked at him, stared into his eyes. He frowned, and stared back.
The audience began to laugh. They laughed at me. The fingers pointed at me. All around they laughed, the mustache man waved his cigar in the air and let out thunderous bellows.
I looked at the little man. He shook his head, clearly disappointed, and walked away.
On stage the man had stopped in mid lecture, laughing pointing, laughing. Laughing. Laughing.
When you will have made him a body without organs,
then you will have delivered him from all his automatic reactions
and restored him to his true freedom. - Gilles Deleuze
When the quote appeared on the projector the audience roared into applause. Throughout the day I had become reliant on Elaine, following her from room to room in the giant complex building, signing documents and being introduced to men and women with foreign sounding names that I could not quite place.
I was quite discouraged when her abandoned chair beside me was suddenly occupied with a man with a curled mustache smoking a thick cigar. He gave me a large grin and a puff of smoke as he sat down and turned his attention to the front.
The audience of several dozen quieted as Elaine walked to the podium, and began to introduce the aspects of cognitive memory, dependency on association, and various philosophical jargons that left very little information for me to gather through acuteness alone.
The thought passed that maybe these were investors in this project I had become tangled in, yet what reason would they have to be meeting now… with me… so close to the beginning of it all.
Elaine walked to the side of the stage and the conference continued one speaker after another. After each the speech, the man with the mustache beside me showed all his teeth in a massive grin, and blew a cloud of smoke, then stood and applauded loudly.
At some point in the day I noticed from a distance that a few of the audience members were drinking from martini glasses. Something was unusual about the liquid that filled the glasses. At first I had thought it was the dim lighting to accommodate the projector, but it drew my attention from the monotonous lectures up front.
A small man in a server’s outfit was bringing a single martini glass to each of the audience members, resting on a circular plate, with a napkin draped over the top of the glass. As he moved he kept a hand in position above the concealed glass in preparation to catch any movement or bumps along the trip. This was very unlike any bar patron I had witnessed who was easily adept at carrying half a dozen assorted drinks through a crowded chamber without effort or worry.
The man would deliver the drink, and then stand off to the side as the recipient would take a sip. The woman on the side of the aisle in front of me was currently sipping it down slowly, taking effort to get each gulp out of the glass as if it had the consistency of Jell-o.
The liquid itself scared me. The ooze inside the glass reminded me of black oil, yet it writhed with red lines that seemed to hold the substance in form like the thick veins of a pulsing organ. My racing imagination summoned images of a substance made from the black tar scraped from a lifetime smoker’s lungs in an anti-smoking campaign, fermented and bottled to perfection.
The lecture went on, my attention focused on each sip of the black and red goo drizzling into the lips of each occupant of the row in front of me. Each glass finished resolving in the little man collecting the glass, then returning with another for the next guest in the row. Each time waiting for the guest to finish the glass before moving on to the next person.
I looked at their mouths, black and vile. I looked at the front screen, verbose expressions and scientific charts… The man in the overcoat received his glass, and slowly sipped it down… The chart on the board had arrows pointing to the temporal lobe on a model brain… The women with white gloves folded her reading glasses and took a sip... The brain on the screen began to rotate… the man with the mustache beside me took his glass from the plate and slammed it with one sip… the screen showed guns firing, showed trees decaying in fast forward, and then in reverse, showed people waving and then being dropped into the sea…
I turned around, the little man offered me his tray, offering the concealed drink under the tray. The little man. The little man. I pulled the napkin off.
The glass was empty. I looked at him, stared into his eyes. He frowned, and stared back.
The audience began to laugh. They laughed at me. The fingers pointed at me. All around they laughed, the mustache man waved his cigar in the air and let out thunderous bellows.
I looked at the little man. He shook his head, clearly disappointed, and walked away.
On stage the man had stopped in mid lecture, laughing pointing, laughing. Laughing. Laughing.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Engaged
The call was brief. They told me they would like to meet in person again, and if things went well they would most likely begin the project immediately following our meeting.
They told me I had a week to pack a single bag, find storage for my belongings, cancel my apartment lease, and say my goodbyes. I told them the dumpster out front did the job just fine, and that I would not be missed. They asked if I had a laptop, I said I did. They asked if I had a nice suit, I said I did not. One would be provided. They asked if tonight was too soon, and we arranged a ride to be waiting at 8.
They told me I had a week to pack a single bag, find storage for my belongings, cancel my apartment lease, and say my goodbyes. I told them the dumpster out front did the job just fine, and that I would not be missed. They asked if I had a laptop, I said I did. They asked if I had a nice suit, I said I did not. One would be provided. They asked if tonight was too soon, and we arranged a ride to be waiting at 8.
Look at our Tomb
When I was a child I had an aura of profound curiosity and wonder with the world around me. The influences of fictional worlds and thoughtful literature were my only guides, and I was rigidly separated from the ideals of logic and common sense that surrounded me. The immersion of everyday life was non-existent and I was satisfied in my path of unknown future.
When I grew older the meaningless monotony of the non-fiction world began to decay my soul. The immersion of survival in the Commonlands of society was not matched with a challenge greater then that of boredom. The rigid lethargy of the common people broke me from my shell and turned my thoughts of mysticism and imagination into impractical tools to be looked down upon, to be pushed aside and ridiculed.
The aura of individuality grows dim in the light of a desire for a steady hand. Insights into dream worlds and conceptions of universal truth are not matched by the importance of clocking in to work at a specified hour. We are not bound by the teaching of what we can do that is different, but by what we can achieve that is the same as those that do not dream.
Sleep, sleep forever.
When I grew older the meaningless monotony of the non-fiction world began to decay my soul. The immersion of survival in the Commonlands of society was not matched with a challenge greater then that of boredom. The rigid lethargy of the common people broke me from my shell and turned my thoughts of mysticism and imagination into impractical tools to be looked down upon, to be pushed aside and ridiculed.
The aura of individuality grows dim in the light of a desire for a steady hand. Insights into dream worlds and conceptions of universal truth are not matched by the importance of clocking in to work at a specified hour. We are not bound by the teaching of what we can do that is different, but by what we can achieve that is the same as those that do not dream.
Sleep, sleep forever.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
One Month Later
The computer screen went black. I carefully turned around, wary of the bright lights. The pain and headaches were not present.
To my surprise the interviewers were no longer in the room with me. I waited a few minutes, and then decided to return to the waiting room.
I entered the waiting room and looked towards the security guard. A different security guard had taken his place, and gave a half-cheerful nod in my direction. I said something along the lines of:
“Hey, is um... Elaine around anywhere? I was doing the second part of an interview...”
He just shrugged and said:
“Well I think everyone left for the day. I can check our log of badge times.”
He rolled over to the computer in his office chair and punched a few keys.
“Yeah, they left a while ago. Should I leave a message?”
“Um,” I started in confusion. “Just tell them thanks for the interview... I guess.”
Well that went to shit, I thought. That game was fun as hell though, I wonder what sort of crazy juice they had me wired on. I swore my hand was still burning from taking a hit from that ax. I half expected it to be bleeding like something from The Matrix.
Anyway, that’s the story so far. Now over a month has passed, and I got a phone call just earlier today.
When they said my “test results” had come in. I had strained to think of what test I had taken. Drug test? STD? School? The recording had stated it was from Providence Industries and was a California number.
Providence Industries... hm.
To my surprise the interviewers were no longer in the room with me. I waited a few minutes, and then decided to return to the waiting room.
I entered the waiting room and looked towards the security guard. A different security guard had taken his place, and gave a half-cheerful nod in my direction. I said something along the lines of:
“Hey, is um... Elaine around anywhere? I was doing the second part of an interview...”
He just shrugged and said:
“Well I think everyone left for the day. I can check our log of badge times.”
He rolled over to the computer in his office chair and punched a few keys.
“Yeah, they left a while ago. Should I leave a message?”
“Um,” I started in confusion. “Just tell them thanks for the interview... I guess.”
Well that went to shit, I thought. That game was fun as hell though, I wonder what sort of crazy juice they had me wired on. I swore my hand was still burning from taking a hit from that ax. I half expected it to be bleeding like something from The Matrix.
Anyway, that’s the story so far. Now over a month has passed, and I got a phone call just earlier today.
When they said my “test results” had come in. I had strained to think of what test I had taken. Drug test? STD? School? The recording had stated it was from Providence Industries and was a California number.
Providence Industries... hm.
Little Men
The castle walls seemed to vibrate and pulse. The minotaur kept fucking with the little men that scrambled in and out of my treasure horde. Goddamn brainless minotaur. Don’t they know I can just bite their heads off? Quit stealing the little men.
The keystrokes and the mouse movements were my limbs. The monitor was my eyes. That drug was like no other, or maybe the video game itself was made for the drug. The interview room had faded away hours ago (or was it minutes?) The interviewers were watching me play, yet I was not playing, I was living.
It had started as a green floor, a blue sky. When I moved my head to look away from the screen my vision blurred and burned like going from complete darkness into the fires of hell.
There was nothing. I had moved the mouse, ran my hands across every key. No input, no reaction, not even a god damned mouse pointer. I tried to turn and ask, but the burning in my eyes quickly turned into pulsing and pain. I tried to speak and found my mouth had gone dry.
Then the little men had come, wandering in from the endless horizon. They seemed so lost, so confused, wandering around in the ridged flatness of the undeveloped virtual world.
I grabbed one. Was it my hand? I put him in a box, put a label on the box. I grabbed another, put him in a different box. They kept coming and coming, and soon the boxes filled the screen, and it became very difficult to find a spot to lay a box without crushing the little men.
So I built a castle out of the boxes. For some reason the little men knew that the castle was home. As soon as the layout was complete, they began wandering in the castle without my intervention whatsoever.
I felt smug until the minotaurs showed up. They scared me, brought a deep dread within my heart. When I saw them grab the little men, and gobble them up whole, it brought a deep pain within my heart that I had not felt since losing a close friend, or overcoming some tragic event.
I felt my hand clench into a fist. Yet could it be my fist? My hand still gripped the mouse tightly, but I’m sure it was mine. They were small compared to my godlike stature. I could crush them in my mighty hand.
I closed in on the minotaur, leaped at it and swung down in a flying punch attack. The minotaur quickly turned and it swung. The ax connected with my hand and sliced the inside of my palm.
Click.
The keystrokes and the mouse movements were my limbs. The monitor was my eyes. That drug was like no other, or maybe the video game itself was made for the drug. The interview room had faded away hours ago (or was it minutes?) The interviewers were watching me play, yet I was not playing, I was living.
It had started as a green floor, a blue sky. When I moved my head to look away from the screen my vision blurred and burned like going from complete darkness into the fires of hell.
There was nothing. I had moved the mouse, ran my hands across every key. No input, no reaction, not even a god damned mouse pointer. I tried to turn and ask, but the burning in my eyes quickly turned into pulsing and pain. I tried to speak and found my mouth had gone dry.
Then the little men had come, wandering in from the endless horizon. They seemed so lost, so confused, wandering around in the ridged flatness of the undeveloped virtual world.
I grabbed one. Was it my hand? I put him in a box, put a label on the box. I grabbed another, put him in a different box. They kept coming and coming, and soon the boxes filled the screen, and it became very difficult to find a spot to lay a box without crushing the little men.
So I built a castle out of the boxes. For some reason the little men knew that the castle was home. As soon as the layout was complete, they began wandering in the castle without my intervention whatsoever.
I felt smug until the minotaurs showed up. They scared me, brought a deep dread within my heart. When I saw them grab the little men, and gobble them up whole, it brought a deep pain within my heart that I had not felt since losing a close friend, or overcoming some tragic event.
I felt my hand clench into a fist. Yet could it be my fist? My hand still gripped the mouse tightly, but I’m sure it was mine. They were small compared to my godlike stature. I could crush them in my mighty hand.
I closed in on the minotaur, leaped at it and swung down in a flying punch attack. The minotaur quickly turned and it swung. The ax connected with my hand and sliced the inside of my palm.
Click.
Questions
The waiting room connected with a plexi-glass screening area, complete with full body scanners and what looked like sliding doors. I took a seat my eyes met with a security guard who sat in the corner.
The room had no table, no magazines. I sat nervously, trying not to slouch or sweat. I took another quick glance at the security guard, who still stared relentlessly at me. He furrowed his brow. Two suits entered the door, breaking the eternal moment of awkwardness.
The interviewers each took turns shaking my hand, never quite keeping eye contact. The lady with buzzed short blonde hair and glasses introduced herself as Elaine. She wore a light blue jacket that somehow reminded me of hospital attire. The other one was a large muscular man, seeming to have a military disposition of some sort, bald and tanned, yet stuffed awkwardly into an expensive looking suit. His face seemed to be cast in a permanent snarl that thickened as he squeezed my hand like a wet sponge. He did not say his name.
I expected to go through the security hallway, and met eyes with the security guard once more. He rolled his eyes, as the interviewers headed the opposite way through a side door into a plain white room containing four chairs surrounding a table. We sat.
Question. What was your previous job, and what was your favorite daily task?
Question. What are you looking for in this opportunity?
Question. Do you believe in God?
Question. Could you eat a combination of the same 3 meals for duration of your employment?
Question. Would you have a problem with a one year or longer sexual abstinence?
Question. What are your normal bowel movement times?
Pause. Stare. Glance at army dude. Wince.
Question. If put in a position to kill to survive, what would your reaction be?
Question. Do you have any personal relationship with the US Army.
Question. Do you have any personal relationship with members of a European government?
Question. Do you have any drug problems, or use any psychedelic substances on a regular basis?
Question. Would you be willing to if required?
Question? Drink this.
The room had no table, no magazines. I sat nervously, trying not to slouch or sweat. I took another quick glance at the security guard, who still stared relentlessly at me. He furrowed his brow. Two suits entered the door, breaking the eternal moment of awkwardness.
The interviewers each took turns shaking my hand, never quite keeping eye contact. The lady with buzzed short blonde hair and glasses introduced herself as Elaine. She wore a light blue jacket that somehow reminded me of hospital attire. The other one was a large muscular man, seeming to have a military disposition of some sort, bald and tanned, yet stuffed awkwardly into an expensive looking suit. His face seemed to be cast in a permanent snarl that thickened as he squeezed my hand like a wet sponge. He did not say his name.
I expected to go through the security hallway, and met eyes with the security guard once more. He rolled his eyes, as the interviewers headed the opposite way through a side door into a plain white room containing four chairs surrounding a table. We sat.
Question. What was your previous job, and what was your favorite daily task?
Question. What are you looking for in this opportunity?
Question. Do you believe in God?
Question. Could you eat a combination of the same 3 meals for duration of your employment?
Question. Would you have a problem with a one year or longer sexual abstinence?
Question. What are your normal bowel movement times?
Pause. Stare. Glance at army dude. Wince.
Question. If put in a position to kill to survive, what would your reaction be?
Question. Do you have any personal relationship with the US Army.
Question. Do you have any personal relationship with members of a European government?
Question. Do you have any drug problems, or use any psychedelic substances on a regular basis?
Question. Would you be willing to if required?
Question? Drink this.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)