driftland

[driftland]

Doomed

I would have never thought I would find myself finally moving away from my parents house, and yet, here I am packing away.

This house has never brought me any joy. I call it the “rebound” house.

When I was 6, back in the 70’s, we used to live in a village where objects such as cars, houses, clothes and others were distributed by the state so as to avoid any kind of social conflict. Everyone…

[driftland]

The Chameleon

The Hills was a quiet neighborhood. Those who lived there were professionals with high college degrees, such as doctors, lawyers and architects. No one in their right minds would have ever suspected that among such normal people there was a three-time-felony convict living  in the same street. 

Michael seemed to be a mellow, relaxed guy. He looked cool as a cucumber. He had to, otherwise…

[driftland]

The Black Boy

African-Americans are very rare in Argentina. It is so unusual to see them that, whenever they are spotted, the most frequent reaction is to be a little taken aback. So, you may wonder, how a little mixed-raced boy like me was brought up in an environment where having brown skin was the darkest shade available.

My grandparents were Dominican immigrants of a very specific breed. I mean extremely catholic, traditional, family-oriented –which is code for intrusive–, wealthy people. God only knows how they weaseled their way in the conversation about my education and ended up putting my parents in a corner so as to fully pay for it. As a result, my parents’ hands were tied: sending me to a catholic school was a must.

I will never forget the first approach I had with other children at school. Not only did I feel completely out of place in a church-like school, but I also found myself surrounded by what seemed to be an albino colony: they were all light-eyed, blond, fair-skinned kids who goggled at me as if they hadn’t seen a little brown boy in their entire lives... Well, maybe they hadn’t after all.

This was in the nineties, which in my eyes were the threshold of the stereotype era. Being so, people used to call others by lovely nicknames such as “Jew” –if among their features they owned a hooked or large nose, or an intricate last name–, “Fatty” –for a chubby complexion–, “Shorty” –if the person was no taller than their surroundings–, and so on. This was border-line aggressive, but if it came from a place of love, as my grandparents used to say, it was okay. In my case, my schoolmates got really creative and came up with a very suitable nickname for me: “Blacky” –no spoiler there–. Maybe Nelson wasn’t hip or catchy enough. The problem was whenever someone from school would spot me in the street and shouted “Blacky” at me, half the people in the street would turn around along with me. You see, it served its purpose so well that it would not only suit me but also half of the neighborhood.

At the end of every year, when Christmas was around the corner and we were all preparing for the concerts, the teachers got overwhelmed with excitement when it came to set up the nativity scene: they had been blessed with the perfect actor to play Balthazar –the black guy of the Three Wise Men–. I remember my second-grade teacher joyfully pinching my cheek and telling me I was the perfect fit for the role. I think her excitement must have been actually reflected on the fact that she would no longer suffer from carpal tunnel every Christmas from dying some kid head-to-toe black.

Along with my teenage years came my rebellious stage. While visiting some relatives back in The Dominican Republic, I discovered Hip-Hop music. The moment I heard the beat and listened to those lyrics I got goosebumps. That music spoke to me. Naturally, I got completely obsessed with it and this echoed in my clothes and ultimately in my swagger, which was more like a waddle. Plus, I had everyone call me “B-Nelly” ... Yes, it was ridiculous.

It is to this day that I remember my crush from those years. I met her through a Hip-Hop chat web page and, fortunately, she didn’t live far away, so we set up a date. We agreed to meet up in a park half-way from both our houses. It was awkward as hell.

“Hey Ana! Nice to meet you!” I squeaked.

“Hi,” she quavered. The poor girl must have been even more nervous than me.

We clumsily hugged it out and sat on a park bench.

“It’s so nice to finally meet a girl who likes Hip-Hop for a change!” I was so nervous my voice found a higher, squeakier pitch.

She was staring into nothingness. Her arms were tightly crossed as well as her legs. She didn’t seem very comfortable, so I adjusted my throat a little and –given that she didn’t make a sound in response– I tried to keep my cool and re-engaged in conversation.

“So, what singers do you like? Tupac, 50 Cent, Snoop Dog...”

“I... I actually like Eminem...” she nervously blurted out.

“C... Cool!” I unenthusiastically stuttered.

Eminem was the only white Hip-Hop singer at that moment. I suspected she might have been trying to blow me off.  We spent the rest of the date in a deep uncomfortable silence, which seemed like an eternity, and when it got a little cold, we decided to call it a day.

This lovely “memoir” was the first of many long and awkward dates I would have.  I must admit that being a dark-skinned guy has given me enough experiences to learn not to take life too seriously. I’ve had my fair share of laughs, even when perceived as morally incorrect, just like being pointed as “The Black Boy”.

[driftland]

A Noisy Place

Ivy’s life was a normal one. He was the classic American boy brought up in a small town where nothing remotely interesting ever happened and he was actually getting fed up with such a steady life. His mother Daisy was a baker and his father Elm was a gardener. Most of his relatives were named after plants and flowers, and the ones that weren’t, had nicknames to fit this family tradition. The only issue about Ivy’s family was that they seemed to be quite secretive. He felt as if they were keeping things from him and most times this made him feel excluded. He wished he had a closer relationship with his parents, especially with his father.

Elm was obsessed with plants. He was clearly gifted with a green thumb. People in town called him “The plant whisperer”. Ivy was so used to having plants around that he hadn’t realized that his own backyard was completely out of this world. The plants his father had so carefully grown were the most colorful, big and scented anyone had ever seen.

It was the second night after his eighteenth birthday when something completely unexpected turned his life around. Ivy was deeply asleep when he felt a loud snap. It made him jolt in bed. He wasn’t sure where it had come from. No one at home seemed to have been awakened by the sound, so he rolled over in his bed and tried to go back to sleep. Another snap caught his ear and right after it a low rustle. He kicked the bed sheets away, sat down on the edge of his bed and squinted his eyes in the dark, trying to listen carefully to get the source of the noise. There was a lower rustling sound coming from outside, towards the garden. He scuttled down the stairs as fast as he could, patting his way through the dimness and slid into his father’s warehouse to grab a shovel. It was the closest tool to a weapon he could think of. He slowly prowled towards the slightly open door that led to the garden while still listening to this rustling and crunching sound and peeked through the tiny opening. He would have never believed his eyes.

His father was watering the plants while these leaned towards him, as if they were having the most interesting conversation. He could hear his father mumbling unintelligibly at the plants and clicking his tongue every now and then while lightly patting and stroking them. Ivy thought he was having one of the most bizarre dreams he had ever had, a very vivid one, when he suddenly felt something brushing against his earlobe and making a soft clicking sound, just as if a dolphin was whispering into his ear. He turned around with a shaky move towards the sound to discover a leaf of an English Ivy hanging right next to his ear and clumsily hit the door with his shoulder making it creak.

“Who is that?” Elm asked. “Ivy, is that you?”

Ivy, startled by his father’s voice, forgot all about the shovel he was holding, letting it slide through his fingers and landing directly on his pinky toe, crashing loudly against the floor in the silent night. “Damn! Ouch! Yes dad, sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop” Ivy answered while approaching his father in the backyard. He waddled along, goggling overwhelmed at the image of Elm, as if he had turned around and set foot onto a completely different planet.

“Don’t be scared! It was about time you got the call!” Elm chirped happily.

“What are you talking about? You must be feverish or something… let me get you back to bed and …”

“Son, just shut up and listen. I mean this in the best way possible. Just let the sounds come to you.”

In a moment of silence, all the sounds started building up. He shut his eyes and felt a brand-new world of vibrations unraveling inside his eardrum, making way to his temporal bones and bouncing out his eyes. He could hear jingles, cracks, rustling and clicks. It all came from the plants surrounding him. He opened his glistening eyes. He had finally come to conclude what separated him from his family. Now he understood.

“There is a real reason behind our names. Our family tradition isn’t just a silly one. We can all listen to the plants. It’s our kind of sixth sense.”

“Why haven’t you or anybody mentioned this before?” Ivy shrieked. He was shaken but excited at the same time.

“Did you want to feel you were surrounded by crazy? ‘Cause I didn’t! At least now I can prove it to you! All right, I know this can be a little shocking at the beginning. Come, sit next to me. This is one of the best things I’ll ever be able to pass on to you.”

That night was the turning point in Ivy’s life. He grew closer to his father and also to his family. Not to mention he felt somewhat special. The world he had discovered that night was seemingly enclosed only for him and his family... But this made him wonder: if he was able to listen to the plants, could there be other special people in the world who could have other special skills?

[driftland]

To Kill a Mocking Bird (a little change in the story)

Jem, Dill and I were firmly latching on to the metal bar at the front row in the balcony of the courthouse while looking down, trying to get a glimpse of who would be next to testify.

The booming voice from the court clerk rang out, “Mayella Violet Ewell!” A young girl walked up to the stand, swore in and sat down. The judge asked her to describe what had happened on the evening of November twenty-first of the previous year. She nodded. It seemed like she couldn’t stop twitching. With a shaky hand, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and then clasped both of her hands between her clenched thighs. She took a mouthful of air and proceeded with a quaver “W –well, I –I was on the front porch of m’house just doin’ nothin’ a –and he came along, you see, th –there was an’ ol’chiffarobe in the yard Papa wanted me to chop up, but I –I wadn’t feelin’ strong enough then, so he came by –“

“Who is ‘he’?” Atticus interrupted.

“That nigger yonder”, Mayella pointed at Tom Robinson, who was sitting in the defendant desk.  

“Then what happened?”

“I said, ‘Come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me.’ I gotta nickel and I turned ‘round and ‘fore I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me round the neck cussin’ me an’ sayin’ dirt – I fought n’ hollered, but he had me round the neck. He hit me in the face agin an’ agin –“

“Which hand did he use to hit you?” Atticus’ voice bellowed all of a sudden making everybody jump.

“Well I – I rekon t’s his left hand. Y –Yessuh, his left hand sir.”

“Are you completely sure, Miss Mayella?”

“Positively sure.”

Atticus turned around looking down. “Scout, look at that!” Jem pointed at our father’s hands. He slipped them into his pockets while making direct eye contact with the floor. He used to do that while playing chess, when he was clearly deeply focused on his next move.  

“Mr. Robinson, could you please lift your left hand?” He referred to the defendant. Jem and I looked at each other from the corner of our eyes and grinned. We knew he had the trial in the palm of his hand.

“I –I’m sorry s –suh, I –I can’t.” Tom quivered with uncertainty almost muttering the words.

Atticus turned towards Mr. Ewells and lifted his head to stare at him. “Why is that, Mr. Robinson?”

“I –I got m’arm caught in a cotton gin when I was a chil’. I was all bled-up ‘n’ the machine took most my arm to the bone.”

The courtroom was buzzing with murmurs. Judge Taylor banged his gavel three times before the commotion came to order. In the meantime, Atticus turned around and faced Mayella. He lifted his glasses up with his finger, approached to the girl and when the room had finally come to silence, he asked her with a cooing voice, “Are you completely sure it was that man who did what you described?” Mayella’s face went scarlet red. With a troubled expression, she took a peek at her father sitting in the prosecutor’s table and burst into tears hiding her face between her palms. “No, it wasn’t! I can’t bear this anymore! Everytime Papa drinks he hits me and my lil’ brothers too!” she cried.

There was a racket in the courtroom after her reaction. Mr. Ewell stood up clumsily gripping the back of his chair for balance. “Ya’ lil’ piece o’scum!“ He babbled, almost falling over the desk while pointing at his daughter. Two police officers grabbed him by the arms making him stand up straight. “Order! Order!” Judge Taylor hollered, slamming his gavel against the stand.

The rattle dimmed to a soft murmur. The judge proceeded, “Given the facts and the recent events that conflict against the prosecutor’s deposition, I therefore declare the defendant Thomas Robinson not guilty of the charge of rape. Court is dismissed.”

After cuffing him, the police officers that were holding Mr. Ewell up, frogmarched him all the way out of the courthouse. Mayella was still sobbing while Atticus kneeled in front of her. He usually did that to be at eye level with me, whenever I was upset. Though I could only see his back, I knew he must have been trying to comfort Mayella in some way.

Tim Robinson was the first colored person to be acquitted from a felony in the state of Alabama. The winds of change were beginning to blow and I couldn’t wait to see what life would bring next.

[driftland]

A Clockwork Orange Another character’s point of view

‘What’s it going to be then, eh?’

Alex’s voice echoed in my head as if it had been yesterday, when I came by the scraps of gazettes I had hidden in a box stashed and forgotten in the depth of my closet. One of them showed a picture of Alex lying all scattered on the floor, bleeding out with the headline “Boy victim of criminal reform scheme”. This brought back so many memories I hadn’t thought about in what felt like a million years. It was all part of what ended up in a war against the government, in which we’ve been trying to expose their twisted agenda for our society.

At that time, I was staying at Peter and Mary’s in the blocks of flats built in the industrial part of the city. They were such nice people, though they had been so deeply damaged by their ill, demented son. I felt as if they could have been my actual parents, or a part of my own family, to say the least.

A distressing feeling pushed right onto my guts. That’s when I remembered those two weeks I had spent in jail. I was arrested one week after Alex, was released back to his parent’s house. I remembered how unfair it had felt when they arrested me. A monster such as Alex released, on the loose in the city, and me, just a regular chap, trying to defend my girlfriend from the police force, taken down and spending what felt like an eternity between bars. I was afraid my acts towards the police would end up leading me to this so-called treatment that some people were talking about, the one that was actually being used by the government to make figureheads out of inmates… You must be thinking prison drove me insane, but it actually did the opposite. It was there where I came to understand for the first time what was really going on.

All I went through during those days took a big blindfold from my eyes. The inmates were being sent to a facility inside prison to get “straightened”, and within a couple of weeks they were released back to society, just like that. I found this extremely suspicious, so I began looking for someone inside who could be trustworthy enough to explain what was really going on. I never thought I would find this person in the prison church. The Prison Chaplain was the only one inside that actually cared about people’s well fare. He was the one who gave me the details of the Ludovico treatment, and as soon as he explained the method and the effects it had on people’s bodies and behaviours, I understood what I had witnessed back when Alex had returned to Peter and Mary’s apartment. Inmates were being put through this method and ended up refurbished into what best suited the government. It was the closest a person could be from becoming a clockwork being. For the first time in my life, I felt panic.

“Joe, the government is trying to use this science as a way to interfere in people’s health. This will act as a mean to cover humans’ reactions and forcing them into having an idealistic behaviour”, explained the Chaplain.  

“So this means politicians are about to mess around with people’s freewill”, I thought out loud.

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man”, he added.

This was one of the most disturbing ideas I had ever heard, next to altering DNA to create the perfect human being, brought about by the Second World War… And this Ludovico treatment was actually taking place in the building next door.

I was released just in time for good behaviour, before anyone could force this treatment on me. My cellmates weren’t so lucky. The day I got out, they relocated one of them into the mental facility.

As soon as I got freed, I heard about Alex’s suicide attempt. A group of three men were looking for some proof to show the government’s intentions, and Alex just happened to come right to their door to serve their purpose, but they were stupid enough to leave him on his own, letting him jump off a window.  

People still don’t believe my story, even when we hear about inmates being miraculously released after only two months of committing a horrible felony. But TV and the media act as the perfect cover. People want to believe they are in a world where the good ones are here to live a quiet life and the villains can actually get a second chance. The government has been successful in trying this method on inmates, and it will get to a point when this jumps over that wall and spreads into our daily life. It’s the best way they can bend our minds without us noticing. God only knows when they will start slipping this into everyday products, if they haven’t already started.

[driftland]

Nowhere to Run

White, that's all I see. White nothingness. Numbing white. Slowly, from within this hollowness, my mother’s face unveils. She seems to be right next to me, telling me about her day. Her eyes glisten with sorrow. It doesn't sound like such a bad day, so I try my best to comfort her, but it's as if she didn’t hear the words. “Oh, dear son, if only you could hear me!” she moans. There's definitely something very wrong going on here, but I just can't grasp it.

I look up and see a ceiling above our heads. Right before my eyes, an entire room unravels, like poured paint dripping from above as I look down. The place is still as white and bright as before. The air is thin and murky.

A man walks in. He turns his head and spots me. With an evil grin, he runs towards me, and frantically tries to take off my clothes. “No! Stop it!” I shriek, while failing to push him away. I realize I can’t lift up my arms. They feel as heavy as two sand bags hanging from my shoulders down, not responding. This feeling slowly spreads throughout my entire body.

I desperately look around the room looking for my mother, but she isn't there anymore. I turn back to my aggressor. He’s nowhere to be seen. I see myself instead, my feet and legs. I’m lying on a hospital bed. I'm in a coma…

And it all suddenly came back to me. A red sports car, I was driving. Fast. That truck that came out of nowhere, the brakes screeching loudly, my head crashing through the glass. Everything goes blurry while I hear the sound of an ambulance approaching, and then, darkness.

I’m trapped inside my own delusional mind. There’s nowhere to run. I can’t tell if any of this is real. It all just feels real, but nothing makes much sense.

All of a sudden, the room sucks me into a cone where I’m being painfully dragged all the way back. My body, cringing, curves into a ball. My chest feels like being ripped open and my heart aches as if brutally beaten. The air slips out of my lungs. I can’t breathe.

A beeping sound woke me up. The warmth of the room wrapped my body as I opened my eyes and saw my mother sleeping on a sofa right next to my bed, where I was lying. She woke up as soon as I turned. Her eyes were wide open in disbelief. She jumped towards me, grabbing my hand.

“They said you’d never wake up again! It’s a miracle!” she cried. It seemed like she’d been sitting in that room for a long time.

“What happened?” I asked, with the little air I could grab.

“You were in a terrible car accident. Yesterday you went into cardiac arrest and the doctors brought you back with that pad thing over there.” She pointed at a defibrillator. That explained the intense chest pain I had felt.

The man of my vision entered the room and I instantly jolted. It was the nurse that had been looking after me all along. He was as shocked as my mother. He rushed to check my vitals, and while doing so, I caught him barely biting his lip. It felt deviant. That’s when I realized he had clearly done something nasty to me before, and some of it slid through my hallucinations. It was outraging. The words just came out.

“You know, you should be careful with everything you do and feel around your patients. We can perceive it all, even when unconscious” I threatened.

His face went scarlet red and ran out of the room trying to hide it.

I’m not sure how I will proceed with this since it’s all quite uncertain. Plus, my body is still pretty weak after the accident and I haven’t been able to move much, but at least I’m no longer stuck in that numbing limbo anymore. I guess I can say I'm among the few ones who are lucky enough to have made it through and live to tell the tale.

[driftland]

Inserted incident in the novel Dead Famous by Ben Elton

First, a little context: Dead Famous is a novel about a murder investigation inside a reality show such as Big Brother, called House Arrest. There are three characters leading the investigation. This story is an invented piece where an argument is held between Patricia or Trisha, one of the officers, who is very modern and open-minded, and Inspector Coleridge, a very conservative 60-year-old man.

Trisha, one of the many constables working in the Essex police force, had been patiently preying on for the perfect moment within the murder investigation when she could finally get a chance to reveal her sexual orientation to inspector Coleridge. She didn’t feel the need to flaunt it or anything of that sort, but they had been working side by side for quite some time now, and to do so along with such a narrow-minded man made her feel as if she had been forced back into the closet, and this was taking a toll on her.

She couldn’t wait to slap his all-men mentality down to the ground, to take the blindfold from his eyes and show him that not everybody had to follow his ways, that his were not the morals everybody stood by, and furthermore, she thought he might be the only dinosaur around who could still keep that kind of flint-stone mentality in the police force.

Coleridge had been gushing on and on about his deep beliefs in God, the one and only, and how us mortals are the ones responsible for being there for him, though Trisha had drifted away from the minute he began preaching her. She still kept eye contact with him and would nod every now and then to make sure he didn’t realize she wasn’t listening anymore. She had got used to doing so by now, every time he started blabbing out about anything not connected to their investigation. She preferred to take the moral high ground, it was easier that way, after all, he was the boss. However, that day Trisha was running out of patience faster than usual.

“God is not required to be there for you! You should be there for him!” This conversation was taking a particularly annoying turn, and she wanted to end it.

“Well, that’s what you think, sir, but”

“It is also what every single philosopher and seeker after truth in every culture has believed since the dawn of time, constable!” He cut her off.  This had never happened before. Trisha tried her best to keep it together, but on this particular day, it was too much of an outrage. She went ballistic.

“You bloody old fart! You wouldn't realize how real-life people actually think even if it hit you in your sorry-ass face! You wouldn't even understand that many people out there, just like me, are being persecuted by your dear Church, being told that they are living in sin and therefore don’t deserve to live a normal life! You still think every single person should profess the rules that same God created and these psychopaths so obsessively follow? You will never realize what a bloody self-absorbed egomaniac you really are if you can’t actually put those facts together! There’s no such thing as one absolute truth! And yours isn’t the one everyone should pursue!” She immediately regretted her outburst and covered her mouth. She shook her hands in the air in panic, trying to come up with some sort of hand gesture that could possibly take away every word that had just come out of her mouth.  

“I'm so sorry, Sir! I didn't mean… I mean… I… because you said… and then” She was so embarrassed, she couldn’t make a complete logical sentence. She usually was a very strong, independent woman and didn’t care what anybody thought about her, but this time her job was at stake.

“Are you a homosexual, Patricia?” Those words sounded so awkward coming from him, but it seemed like all he had heard was when she included herself in her speech.

“Yes.” She stopped and looked at him with squinted eyes, trying to guess what his reaction might be.

“That is… interesting. I would have never guessed it. You have given me quite a lot of information to ponder on.” He was acting a little more rigid than usual, but it seemed like he wouldn’t go into further detail. He resumed talking about the investigation. Trisha knew he wasn’t comfortable talking about sexuality with a woman he respected. Clearly, he had moved on to let everything fall naturally back into its usual place. She would have never expected that kind of gentle reaction from him.

Trisha was trying to cover a little grin. She couldn’t help herself. She no longer felt the need to hide.

[driftland]

The Dark and The Restless

You would never expect a guy like John to be patient... or just plain polite for that matter. He was the sort of person who would savagely curse hundreds of times at a red light because of the loss of time it implied. He was the classic overly anxious, restless businessman. “I don’t have time for this”, was his catchphrase, “My time is way too precious” was frequently used as a backup. He wouldn’t hold the door or the elevator for anyone. In fact, he was the one who would press the elevators button non-stop, so it would “move the hell on” as he would grunt, before anyone else could get in. Bitten nails, yellow fingertips dyed by the smoke of 20 cigarettes a day, an overbite from constantly grinding his teeth and an extreme leaned-forward gait in his walk were just some of his charming features. All in all, just a big city Average Joe.

He had taken up yoga lessons, but in his eagerness to get relaxed he became too anxious and couldn’t focus. “This is bullshit! I have better things to do with my time!” he barked at the instructor, when she tried to help him balance into the tree pose, and then stormed out of the class... Of course, meditating was out of the question.

He wouldn’t admit it, he was also a little proud, but he felt quite frustrated whenever he tried to concentrate on something and, at a certain point, a million thoughts would pop into his head making him worry about anything else except what he was doing, and that was the trigger that would unleash hell.

Nevertheless, however flawed, he was still pretty sensitive… more than he‘d like to admit. He had started to have these thoughts he had never had before. He thought about life, and what’s the point to everything. He was actually becoming worried about his anxiety and the kind of effect it would have on his health… hence, the yoga lessons. But this hadn’t completely caught up with him just yet. He was just noticing the tip of the iceberg and taking in the fact that this was getting the best of him.

That night, after coming home from the attempt of yoga class, he threw the rolled mat on a very expensive dining room table and immediately dived in his laptop to get some more work done. While impatiently awaiting for a delaying recipient to reply, the lights went off. The only light left on was the computer screen, which reflected on his face. He checked the wifi icon. It was struggling to grab some sort of connection. Checking out through the window, he saw he wasn’t the only one in the dark, no one had electrical power. It was a blackout. “Beautiful! This was just what I frikin’ needed!” He growled through the entire house, looking for any source to get steady light. After lighting the one candle he found at the back of a counter, he leaned against the kitchen table and tapped his fingers vigorously on it, trying to come up with something useful he could do without electricity. He took the candle, grabbed some paper and a pen and started writing down some ideas he didn’t want to forget. While trying to collect other thoughts that had slipped his mind, he looked up through the window. There was a very curious graffiti on the wall opposite his building. He looked down and tried to emulate the shape.

He spent a good half hour doing this without even realizing he hadn’t once been distracted by his unnerving habits kicking in. That’s when he remembered that as a child he used to draw. He actually loved it, but didn’t exactly remember the reason why he had given it up. And suddenly, in the darkness of his office, he had an epiphany: he had finally found a way to abstract himself! It was drawing what he needed to get a clear head! And all because of that damned blackout! After all, you see, every cloud has a silver lining.

[driftland]

Eleven Phone Calls and a Voice Message

It only took three months to get this job interview… she couldn’t believe it. So many people had said how tough it was to get a job in this business, and yet, she landed her first job interview in only three months! After embellishing her résumé and trying to make it look as interesting as possible, with no working experience what-so-ever, and sending it shamelessly to several email addresses, finally, the reply she thought she would never get, appeared magically in her in box, that hot February afternoon.

She suddenly realized she had to put together the perfect outfit. She didn’t have any money to run out and buy something in such short notice, and no fashion designer (or in her case, fashion designer to-be) would show up in just any attire. She wanted to blow them away at first glance. She wanted to look unique, smart, elegant, but still unpretencious... The thing was, in the other hand, she didn’t want to stand out too much in the street. The place where the interview would be held was Flores (A not so safe neighborhood in Buenos Aires). The idea of standing out too much around that area made her feel anxious, in addition to the butterflies in her stomach she was already getting about the actual interview. She had to get very creative for this outfit. She tried on and looked for any alternative uses for every item of clothing in her closet until she was finally sort-of-happy with an outcome.

The day finally arrived. She took the bus that afternoon and sat there for an hour until it finally got to her stop. It had rained the whole morning, so the streets were slippery and dirty. The ground cluttered with scattered leaves, branches and mud. Wearing heels hadn’t been a smart move. She was trying to walk as fast as possible, doing her best not to stumble on anything or step on any muddy loose tiles along the sidewalk. That would be very unfortunate after so much prepping, not to mention she would look quite stupid with a huge stain of muddy water in her clear shoes.

The streets were quite empty, and the stores around didn’t look like what she had pictured. Every store she saw had overwhelming amounts of clothing pilled up in the windows, in what was trying to be a display. She was beginning to feel a bit concerned... But, suddenly, between what looked like some sort of garage and a little restaurant, she spotted a very wide window with clothes displayed in a way that resembled what she had had in mind all along. It had the street number she was given in the email. “Thank God!” she thought, and hurried inside.

The place was huge. It almost took the entire block. The lights from the high ceilings bathed the bright white walls making the sparkly black and white tiles shine. Clothes cascaded from the top of the ceiling down to the floors. Her jaw dropped in astonishment while staring at the amount of clothes hanging there. It seemed endless. If that was the amount of clothing she would have to design, she might have to think twice about this job offer. She started feeling a little overwhelmed. 

A Korean woman greeted her.

“Are you here for the interview?” she asked.

“Yes, they told me to ask for Patricio.”

 “Oh! Yes, I’ll have him called, he should be around.” 

She offered her a sit in a little waiting space that was right next to the main desk. 

Those words started echoing inside her head. “He should be around”… How professional could that place be if they didn’t even know where the recruiter was, or even worse, if this guy wasn’t even around for the interviews! Luckily another Korean guy greeted her before she started getting more paranoid. They shook hands.

“Hello, Gabriela, I’m Patricio. Please, come this way” he made a hand gesture pointing onwards and led the way.

They crossed what could be an inside garden behind a glass wall that separated the very big and long store from what she thought could be the offices, and went up a set of stairs into another building. While they were at it, they came across with many people who were carrying all sorts of clothes backwards and forwards. He greeted everyone on the way. The energy was hectic.

They entered in what seemed to be an office, or a soon-to-be-office. It was half as big as the store downstairs, which was still pretty big, but the only things in this room were a desk, a computer and a pair of office chairs. He turned on the lights, as the window in the office didn’t bring much light. While he sat down he offered her a seat in the chair that was left. 

  “So, as you could see downstairs, we are a big retail store, and we sell clothes by bulk. Most of our clothes are ordered in from China, but we’re looking forward to making our own designs. As we already have a designer who builds some clothes for us, we would like to have an assistant designer who can look into what’s coming on the next season’s trends, mix it with our style and hand that information to the designer so she can apply that to what she’s working on.”

That sounded heavenly! She loved to make trend researches! That job was meant for her!

“For this interview, what I would like you to do is go online and look for images to create a clothing line mixing the style you were able to see downstairs and what you think those clothes are missing. When you finish, email that file to the account we wrote you from and then you can let yourself out.” 

“Perfect.” She said. “Do I have a time limit?”

“Yes, make sure to finish before 6PM, that’s our closing time”

That gave her enough time to make whatever she wanted! She was super exited!

After she nodded, Patricio turned around and left her alone in the office. With a shaky hand she turned on the computer, clicked on the browser and started her research. 

That office was very different from the rest of the building, or at least what she had been able to see. It was so calm, no one entered in any moment. That made her feel quite uneasy. As if she had actually been abandoned at that place. The only thing that made her feel a bit more at ease was she could hear someone talking loudly in Korean in the background. She turned around for a second and saw another door she hadn’t noticed before, far back behind her. “Probably another office.” she thought to herself. She was being way too paranoid. They wouldn’t leave her all alone there!

It felt like she had worked for two hours when she finally sent the attachment. She checked the time on her cellphone. It was 5:40. No one had entered in that room in that whole time, but the sound of the loud voice was still there. She started wondering if this guy would reply, or even show up again at that office… it didn’t feel right to just leave now. She didn’t know what to do. She was getting anxious. She checked the clock again. 5:50… “Shit, what am I supposed to do?” she thought. “This is so awkward! They shouldn’t leave people completely alone like this in an interview!”

The lights faded and the place went dark all of a sudden. She jumped on her seat. The voice behind her went mute as if the person had vanished into thin air. Her heart started beating fast. She was agitated. “It’s probably a power line problem, this area is full with those issues” she thought, trying to calm herself down. 

She stayed put in the silent dark for what felt like an hour. “They wouldn’t leave just anyone here… would they?” She checked the clock again. 6:07. She jumped from the seat, grabbed her purse and hurried out the door. The stairs were even darker. 

“Oh no no no no!!! Fuck! Fuuuuuuck!” she was suddenly desperate.

In the bottom of her purse was her cellphone. She grabbed it and turned on the screen to use it as a flashlight. She hurried down the stairs. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. This was not possible… there was no way that could be actually happening! God, How was that even possible? It felt like she was in the middle of a horror movie. 

Everything was dark. She ran towards the glass wall in the inside garden where there was still a bit of light. There was a closed door. She tried to open it. It was fucking locked! She looked up from the handle, way ahead, at the front of the store. An iron curtain had been completely pulled down. The store had been closed. She was locked in.

 “Please help!! Heeeeeelp!” she screamed up, at the top of her lungs, at the only piece of sky she could see in that tiny square garden… no one answered. Not even a noise. No one could help her. She was too far from the street door for someone to hear her.

She started hyperventilating, trying to come up with something… anything she could do. Breaking the glass might injure her, and being so far away from the main entrance, which was a locked iron curtain, could result on her bleeding out completely … 

The first person she though about was her mother, but she couldn’t bring herself to call her. This situation was way too much for her mother to handle. 

She phoned her boyfriend. Maybe he would come and be able to do something from the other side! 

“Baby! They left me locked in!” She cried desperately

“What? What do you mean?? Where are you??” 

 “I’m at the clothes factory, everybody left without knowing I was still inside!” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? I’ll fucking kill them! Hang in there! Just breathe! I’m on my way!”

That didn’t calm her down, but the sound of his voice gave her a little boost to try and look for any other way out.

What else could she do? She was going back upstairs when she spotted a surveillance camera. “An alarm!” she thought. She had to make the alarm go off and someone would have to come and check it out! She started jumping hysterically in front of the camera. Nothing happened. “Fuck!” she was feeling defeated… Patricio's phone number! She remembered she had saved his cellphone number just in case. She almost dropped her phone while desperately trying to unlock it. The phone rang, but no one picked up. It led to voicemail. Leaving a crazy desperate message was a better attempt to get out of there than nothing at all.

“Patricio, it's Gabriela, the recrutee you interviewed today. I was left locked inside the store. I beg you please come let me out, I'm getting desperate.”

Redial. Again voice mail. Redial... She redialed eleven times and still no answer. She clumsily sat down in the floor, closed her eyes, looked down and grabbed her forehead. She started breathing slowly in and out. 

The wall that used to be white was now dark grey as there was almost no light left in that garden. Finally, the phone rang. That was the best sound she had heard all day. It was Patricio. He had listened to her voice message and was rushing to get her out. “Thank God!” She thought while sighing.

Some minutes after that phone call a ray of light came out from what seemed to be an opening in the iron curtain at the front of the shop. Patricio came in through a little door and rushed to the main desk where he opened a hidden compartment and popped half of his body in, looking for something. The frigging keys!  He took out what looked like a janitor’s keychain. For a second she felt shattered. The last thing she needed was a key mix up while still locked in. But he quickly found the opening key while approaching the door and unlocked it, letting her out.  

While crossing the door she noticed he was as shaky as her. Apparently, they both were in shock. He was silent, keeping his eyes to the floor. She was waiting for him to do or say something… Anything to make that moment at least less awkward. 

He placed his hand on her shoulder and tried making eye contact. 

“Are you ok?” he asked.

She didn’t want to talk about anything that’d just happened. She just wanted to run home and cry. 

“Yes, thank God you got here fast!”

“I know, I’m usually at home at this time. I coincidentally thought to buy something ten blocks away. That was really fortunate!”

She just nodded. She didn’t know how to react.

When she finally came out she saw her boyfriend rushing around the corner and hurried towards him.  They hugged for a minute and then, he took her home.

A week later she got a phone call from Patricio. He wanted to know how she was doing. It turns out he and the rest of the staff got to watch the tapes caught by the surveillance camera and he was worried about how she might be doing.  She told him she was ok. Thankfully she got over the experience quite fast, she actually stayed in only for a couple of days until she was able to face the street again.

She ended up getting the job some time after that phone call. This incident was just a prelude from what ended up being an abusive eleven-hour-long job she wasn't able to bare. She resigned 3 months later.

Six months after she left, they called, begging for her to come back. They had to hire 4 different people to replace her, but they were still hoping she would lead them. 

She rejected the offer.