17 Nowhere else to be found, Lander was outwards bound on just one of many “stroll me for a jobber” walks, about to participate in a group job interview. However forward he would motion his mind to think, Landin’s feet simply kept adding to the length of the path he had to traverse in order to meet his – as he himself thought of it – auspicious moment half-way. What is more the bus stop wasn’t near at all. Noon hadn’t broken yet but the citizenry mindful of their dietary habits, at least those among the voting populace, were already in their usual half-dive into the street dumpsters. The fattest poor you’ll ever get to see are the ones fed on the harmony of State rationed bred and a variety of air humidity. “PANEM ET CIRCAM” as the Romans use to say, except that proposition somehow always turns into “Te cerciamo, Cesare.” Landin spared a coin of no significant denomination to an old corner-hangabout Gipsy woman who was sunbathing her palm which received the minted good while choking the filter of a cigarette between her surprisingly strong looking teeth and an ageing kind and well-mannered yellow dog lying by her side. Both the Gipsy woman and the yellow dog were content, and of the three participants in the interaction Landin Lander was the only one who didn’t earn the calm and restfulness he was on his way to seek. Along his way to the bus stop he had no choice but to pass by a high school in front of the gates of which the city’s youths were panhandling for cigarettes on a proposition that they will one day grow, blossom and bloom themselves and not the cluster of malignant cells in whichever organ or part of anatomy their panhandling would see fit to cook them up for an oncological curiosity. Besides, Lander didn’t smoke and was left out of the further proceedings with only a class bell for a back sound to which, funny enough, all the youngsters responded. Walking towards him was a young mother on maternity leave – or so Landin wanted to think – for there seemed to be no bad habit about her coupled with the fact she had a grocery bag in one and what appeared to him to be a see-through plastic bag of baby supplies in the other hand. She walked neither proudly nor with authority; this was a woman who had a family to raise and goodness knows what type of husband to keep afloat in his woeful day in-day out existence and she did it all, as Lander saw, while talking into an ear-piece of her mobile device, arranging her future benefits and her family’s better times to come. 18 The bus stop was of no relevance except that Landin was there, much like the number of the bus he was in expectance of had no significance to him; it might as well have been XXL for that’s how far he had to travel by that mode of public transportation to get to the job interview. And it did arrive in all its outstretched chassi the length of which was only matched by the number of passengers who boarded the thing and the driving skill of the person at the wheel looking like they were in a bumper car or, if you will, they handled the XXL juggernaut like Senna in the rain. There was plenty of sitting room, yes, but Landin Lander was feeling a bit nervous out of expectation for what was about to come in the interview. Though a positive kind of excitement it left him in a state of pondering on the possible outcome physically relaxed because however his mind was preoccupied with all sorts of speculations his body, by way of his feet and legs, was keeping busy with tending to the balancing act which such a ride demanded out of an upright object irrespective of its nature and the overall condition, all be it temporary, of that nature. As concerned the majority of the passengers, Landin Lander was one of the few among them headed to the XXL’s last stop on the outskirts of the city, a neighborhood not so much haunted by a bad name as much as it was left on the margins by the city fathers. And the further along into the ride they went the greater the gaps between various types of zoned buildings there were. Boutiques were replaced by shops; shops were replaced by stores; stores were replaced by kiosks; kiosks were replaced by mechanics’ garages and mechanics’ garages were replaced by warehouses and a rare mega-market in-between. In one such circumstance the bi-articulated bus made its final stop letting out the sounds of a hissing nature representing or reminiscent of its hydraulic relief and any relief of its machinery in kind. 19 Across the last stop Landin Lander made his way towards what was a residential block of housing estates, high-rises all but no skyscrapers. As he was making his way to the address designated in the reminders of his Cell he noticed that he was already part of a group heading in the same direction and with the same intent as he; some were even talking amongst themselves. And that’s how Lander had his first notion of competition after a long while. It wasn’t that he was actually older than most of them, but he did feel that way first of all because he knew none of them and secondly because he’s been out of the job market for too long; all of that was insignificant with regard to the actual position for which all those candidates had applied and were now vying. They moved like a fuge would on a board of keys conducted according to a more learned DICTUS. Che significa DICTUS?! It’s understood to mean, in this context, the composition they were all part of but being themselves ill-educated in the ways of the fuge they did not perceive the repeating motion of each other even though all of their goals were the same – to prove themselves worthy of the job. Of course there were dissonant tones among those individuals, what is more, a defeatist comment could be heard here and there; but after all a performance is a performance and a public forum is a public forum. Landin Lander was just trying not to keep his head bowed for too long seeing how he was apparently the only one of them all who accepted he didn’t know what was this new breed of cattle market called a group job interview. By a way of a stairwell they made their ascent into the Offices of the company where once there was a private apartment. The Offices had no waiting room because the space had been adapted under circumstances not worth going into. The candidates were shown into a room populated by seventeen Vlaemsch white plastic chairs completely unadorned but yet affordable to the convenience of both the employee and the job candidates the remainder of whom – outside of those seated in those seventeen chairs – were left standing against two side walls of the room, the front wall of which had a desk placed before the audience of job seekers and the rear wall was made busy by a line of windows presented through the back row of those beautifully designed Vlaemsch white plastic chairs. A young lady representing the HR Department of the company introduced them to their seats and to the purpose of them being there that day. Suddenly an abrupt entrance was made by a brusque man well along in his years who presented himself, with no further ado, as the head of Sales at the company. It was he who began talking about points of salesmanship and what makes for a good salesman, what will be expected of those who get a job with his company. He asked the group of those present what they thought a salesman is and what they surmise made for the most praised qualities in a salesman. And amidst all that scheming of that Head of Sales no one asked about the wages, bonuses or a possible commission if any would be offered on the part of the company. Only Landin Lander portended what was going on. It wasn’t a job interview; what he was witnessing was crowd manipulation on the part of an authority figure who drew all his authority not from any particular expertise but from the fact he was in a position to give them money, mind you, not to enable them to earn a salary, but to give them money. No wonder Lander didn’t listen to the amorous speaker but was – while standing against the wall – looking at the other job candidates and realized that it was they who were now in the public forum which was he. Landin raised his hand and was granted permission to give voice by the Head of Sales who’s eyes were all a sheen at the possibility of finding his man, but alas, those eyes of his were made to grow dim when Lander excused himself from further participation in the group interview and exited the room and hence the Offices of the company. But he did like those white plastic Vlaemsch chairs, that’s why he decided to make his way back to the city center in a seated position on the same number XXL bi-articulated bus.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 07:34:44 +0000