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Now what?

He was lying still in the afternoon bed. There was the sound of a blizzard slamming its way through, even though it was March and officially spring. He went to his desk of confusion and filled out some lottery slips.

He had been to the National Archives of Nudity earlier in the day for a job interview. He felt it didn’t go well, but still had hope they would hire him as a junior archivist. He turned in his desk chair toward the window. He peeled the curtains apart. It was sunny and green outside. He saw wasps against the glass and bees dancing in the purple carpet of clover growing close to the ground. But he still heard the sounds of a blizzard inside his head. Nothing was making sense.

He turned back to his computer and decided to compose an e-mail to the woman who had interviewed him. He wanted to thank her and remind her—her name was Rose—that he would be a valuable asset to the organization.

He recalled her questions were odd, but he supposed relatable to the job.

“Would you grimace at the bounty of nude images you would have to look at every day?”

“Not at all… As long as they weren’t too gross.”

“Do you think you would easily tire of looking at nude images all day every day?”

“Sort of the same question… But I don’t think I would.”

“Where do you see yourself in five years.”

He scoffed. “Five years? I don’t even know what my life will be like five hours from now. It’s impossible to know. I don’t understand why interviewers even ask these types of questions. What’s next? Tell me about a time you gave exceptional customer service? I never gave exceptional service. Customers are ungrateful, distasteful twats.”

“I see,” she said, and she moved the pen from the edge of her bottom lip and placed it in a writing position. She jotted something down on a notepad of yellow, lined paper. “Then I suppose it’s a good thing we don’t have customers in the sense of the general public… Which I agree can be an utter nuisance.”

“A sheer collection of rudeness and stupidity,” he pointed out.

“Let’s get back to… Where would you like to see yourself in five years?”

“I would like to be well-versed in the job I am applying for today, and even in a position higher up so that I can share and lead with my learned wisdom.”

“So, you plan on sticking around if we hire you?”

“As long as you don’t fuck up my life.”

Dear Rose, thank you for taking the time to speak to me today about the junior archivist position at the National Archives of Nudity. I want to reiterate my interest in the position and point out that my skill set aligns flawlessly with the requirements of the job. I look forward to further discussion on this matter.

Best regards,

Lloyd Parsons

He hit send.

Rose never replied and he found himself peering out a window every day instead of going to a job.

“I suppose I’m useless to the world,” he said aloud to himself as he stood by a window in his house and looked out upon a seemingly dying world. “Seriously, though. What do I have to offer other than my own mad thoughts?”

It’s sort of how Stevie Nicks talked about Lindsey Buckingham in their early days, he thought, and how she would have to go work a “real” job to pay the bills, but Buckingham just didn’t fit that mold. With a little laugh, she said something like, “He’s a musician. That’s what he is.”

Lloyd went to the bathroom mirror to shave. “I think what she means is,” he began telling his reflection. “He’s not a waiter, he’s not a store clerk, he’s not a fast-food worker… He’s just who he is deep inside.” He pointed the razor at the mirror. “And that’s how it should be for all of us. I’m not useless to the world after all. I just don’t fit into what drives society. But maybe I don’t want to drive. Maybe I want to just gaze out the car window and look at the world and think about things and then write them down. It’s not a curse, it’s a gift! A gift the world wants to rip away from me and everyone else like me.”

Lloyd sighed. He plowed the razor through the white shave cream on his left cheek. The blade bit in, cut him. “Damn it!”

The white shave cream turned red, and so, he went out to the living room window and looked out while he bled all over the place. He was in a fevered frenzy and released himself in front of the world and it felt good for a change.

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Special thanks to Edge of Humanity Magazine for publishing three of my poems recently: Coffee Shop Rain, The Translucent Wander Pain, and Space Curtain. Please go check them out! Also, a reminder that my new e-book is now available for purchase: The Apocalypse Pipe. The print edition will be available soon. Thanks for reading and supporting independent creators.