First day, new job. More excited than I thought I’d be. White sweatpants. White crewneck sweatshirt. Standard issue, one pair, given to me upon hire this time last year.
I maintained weight to make sure they’d fit. Did the drills to make sure I’d be ready. In the early mornings, wake and train. All to wake up early prepared for what awaits today, and every day, for what promises to be an illustrious career.
Standing at the entrance of the facility’s parking lot, I see clear across and up to the front of the building. A few cars scattered throughout the square of darkness.
Lampposts arranged at the far end, illuminating the walkway in front of the building. Fellow white specs drift in from the darkened edges. Stars taking center stage, or dust falling under the downcast light.
As I walk forward, the gray block-like building comes into view. Specs clarify too; fellow jobbers walking up a massive flight of steps and then funneling into the building’s entrance. A steel door, painted white, as welcoming as the building’s cement walls.
Easing my way into line, I join the other jobbers who have decided to make a career out of innovation. The mass of us, channeling into a single-file and through the entrance door, each holding it open for the one behind them, all nodding a ‘thank you,’ but none saying a word.
All looking at the pictures and reading the posters that line the interior hallway walls. Words of encouragement. Reassurance, as if we’d need it, that we are doing the most important work that could be done. It’s our duty to do it like those that did before us.
Fascinating, these posters are, seeing them for the first time, my first day on the job. Fascinating to see everyone else fascinated by them too. I read the words I can while passing, walking for what feels like 300 paces before turning left.
Another narrow hallway, a bit wider than a door. Length looks like another 300 paces. More posters. More new phrases, saying essentially the same things. I may have time to read each word, now that I’m stopped in line behind the other white sweatsuit wearing jobbers that got to work moments before me on this day.
Wish someone told me when I signed up this time last year that I should get to work early to avoid the line. Need to wake up 15-minutes earlier tomorrow.
In the line, silence turns whispers. Scattered murmurs spread toward the front of the pack. Unable to make out the words. Unable to move more than a pace per half-minute.
Reading the posters, their words of inspiration turn into instructions. Re-instructions, really, of what we learned a year ago tomorrow on our training day and have continued to practice every day in our bedrooms by ourselves since.
Confession time.
One hundred paces from our next left turn. I’ll tell you something I’d never admit to my superiors, even if they asked. I’ll tell you about preparations. My preparations. Something about them I didn’t think I’d speak about until now. Ninety-nine paces until the next left turn. Ninety-eight paces plus one step until the hallway ends and my work day begins.
I confess, I didn’t really train every day. Some weeks, I even missed two days. On one of those days, I didn’t even think about the drills I should have been doing. Ninety-six paces. That must be why they blew up the drill cards and put them on the walls. For first timers like me to remember the steps they may have forgotten from the days they skipped drills.
Eighty-five paces. More whispers, murmurs, getting louder. Left turn, a staircase. Two with a landing between them. The crowd slows as each jobber grabs a handrail and ascends.
“My dad was a jobber,” one of the whispers stays intact long enough for me to hear. “I’ve been waiting to follow in his footsteps.”
Another first timer. That is exciting. Wonder if there are any more here today from our training class.
More whispers drift down the hall to the landing between the two flights of steps, paired with “aahs” and “oohs” of excitement for another day on the job. I can’t wait to be that excited for every new day at work.
At the top of the steps, I feel an “ooh” of my own. With the first glimpse through the edge of the glass, I understood how every day at work could feel as exciting as the first.
Three paces down the hall and I’m gasping for air. Pure beauty on display through floor-to-ceiling windows. Fluorescent pink, translucent, shapeshifting, gelatinous bubbles floating in a rectangular void. Half-bubbles of various sizes, oscillating up and down within the infinite liminal space. Long cables whip from beneath the bubbles with each oscillation. Like a slow ripple from a stone on top of a pond, before it sinks to where humans don’t go. Captivating, illuminating, like how oversized neon fireflies must glow.
A minute passes and I miss my two paces forward, unaware of the 384 more that I’ll need to get through the rest of the hall before taking two flights of steps down and then another left. I take one pace, to the side this time, my face as close to the glass as it can get without fogging the view.
Through the semi-translucent half-bubbles with their whipping cables, beyond the near-infinite void. White lab coats move, stop, then study. They look down at screens held in their gloved hands, then back at the bubbles, or orbs, half-orbs maybe they call them. Half-orbs with rhythmically lashing snakelike legs, slithering in unison to propel the upside down, viscus bowl, and- -
“Move,” a blue-jacketed man nudges me back into line. “Keep moving,” he says, so I do.
Moving forward, stealing glances at the new creatures dancing behind the glass beside me. Pony heads with fleshy manes atop svelte bodies that merge into tails. Some of their tails curl while others unfurl, propelling them up then lowering down like an amoebic merry-go-round.
The third section of floor-to-ceiling glass, as wide as the two before, ran from the floating ponies to the start of the steps back down. That’s when I realized why we were all here. What I’ve been training for all year. The final windowed room only housed one creature. A large, snakelike thing with a bottle-like nose. Beady eyes that glowed as it slithered, levitating, and de-elevating within the pondish substance.