An odd attempt at Application

[troubled sleep]

A typical looking girl by the name of Sam curled a hand around the doorknob to the Recruiters Office. She stood there motionless for a moment, but then with a small nod turned the knob and entered, a large red cello case bounding in behind her and just narrowly avoiding getting stuck in the door. She pushed her way through the crowd mumbling about how she would never have a chance against all these people.

She reached the desk with relative ease and with minimal squashing of other's feet by her instrument case's wheels. The desk was cluttered with hopeful applications and forms for those interested in investing in one of Wyvern's famous get rich quick schemes. After a bit of poking about, however, she finally found a blank application and settled down in a low chair in a corner which had just been vacated by yet another confidant applicant.

She sat down and pulled her cello up near her, and commenced to raid the case's storage pockets. She pulled out a ball point to write with, a ceramic lucky German pig and a tiny replica of a cello for luck, and a large bag of Reese cups because God knew she would need them to calm her nerves before the end. Having all this out she uncapped her pen, popped a Reese Cup into her mouth and began to fill out the application form.

 

 

 

Name: Either Sam or Mary, it depends on who you are.

Age: 15ish

Last Requests: Can I not be buried in Georgia??

Comments: Should a person's application crash, burn, and be crushed into tiny pieces could that person reapply sometime in the near/distant future with a story which would hopefully survive its maiden voyage?

 

After filling this and a few pages of offers of a quick buck or pleas for financial aid for new companies sure to make it big someday, she finally found the actual text section of the application, and she had to stare at for a few hundred moments before attempting to scribble down some semblance of a story.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------)(

 

It was December of 1999. December 31st to be exact. The day dreaded by all was nearly upon us. 01-01-00. Fear of this day had driven people to stockpile food, take their money out of banks and revert to their initial instinct to stuff it under a mattress (which was of course, stupid, because the chaos and anarchy these people expected to arise when the ball dropped in New York would have more than likely wiped out the dollar, Swiss Franc, and the ruble anyway). And most importantly it stimulated us all to place those little “Y2K COMPATIBLE” stickers on every single thing the newspaper or TV said was certain to fail once the apocalypse came.

 

Experts believe there was something comforting in those thirteen black and yellow letters printed on a 3” by 2” sticker that pacified the general panic. Something that made people confidant that they had done all they could to protect their computers(though who but Bill Gates and Elementary schools had one back then anyway?), toasters, and anything else which seemed lonely or incomplete without the Y2K sticker of protection.

 

More proof of this can be found in the fact that not a month before the garbage disposal, which had previously lived an uneventful life in the sink of my family’s Southern Virginian home finally, kicked the bucket. A plumber was, of course, called right away and after arriving several hours late(Rule number 767 in the ‘plumber's Handbook’ states that at all costs, the plumber must not arrive on time. If one did arrive at the originally agreed on time, they risk bringing about Armageddon) and spending several minutes poking about under the sink while shaking his head and whispering to himself. It was then he took my mother aside and told her in hushed tones that the tragic death of the garbage disposal was all due to a pre-Y2K fluke that had caused the mass breakdown of household appliances across America. He also told her that this tragic wave of the needless death of reliable appliances could have been easily prevented with a 500 point Y2K inspection and of course the sticker that went with us. I immediately voiced the opinion that this was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. But of course the only response I received from the plumber was a rather unsuccessful death glare. My mother, on the other hand, is nothing if not cautious so after paying the plumber for his nonexistent services, she arranged for us to acquire a new garbage disposal, and this one had a gleaming Y2K COMPATIBLE sticker. The garbage disposal was safe at last.

 

But as I said, it was December 31st, a day that will live in infamy as the only time in its prestigious history that the local Food Lion ran out of bottled water and Hershey bars. This sudden lack of necessities was due to the last minute stockpiling which had been commencing for the past twelve hours. Also, earlier what was left after all these years of the Confederate States of America’s soldiers had paraded up and down the mall carrying their official CSA muskets, each with their own little Y2K COMPATIBLE stickers. They marched around generally making fools of themselves while yelling about how when the clock struck mid-night the South Would Rise Again

 

But that had all been hours ago, and now it was nerve-wrackingly close to mid-night, and on every television channel it was either people leading each other in last prayers before the second coming, late night TV stars cracking lame jokes about the now almost past year, and people in all grey yelling about how the South was indeed going to rise again, despite what you may have been previously thinking. Eventually even President Clinton came out to join the late night TV fray, and he began talking at America about how we were going into an age of prosperity and wealth and other miscellaneously reassuring things generally said by presidents

 

As for me, though, I was sitting next to the phone awaiting a call from my good and dear friend Colleen. The reason behind this was that she was going to call her family’s friends in Britain when the clock struck mid-night there. We figured that if she called and there was no answer, or it said the line had been disconnected then it would be clear that the world was going to end. The two of us could then spread the word to everyone who would listen and together lead our town into mass hysteria. On the other hand, if when she called the phone was answered and she had a nice long chat with them, everyone’s fears could be stilled. Though, there was still the outlandish chance that the South would rise again, but no one really took that seriously despite the claims of the leftover CSA soldiers.

 

But so far there had been no call from Colleen...and no news of world destruction on the news. In fact, the great New York City New Year’s Ball had now taken the place of the praying and lame jokes on every channel. And my dad suddenly broke the long silence that had descended on the room as we all sat up half-asleep.

 

“Mary! Wake up! We’re only two minutes away.” he said yelling in the general direction of the chair I was sitting in.

 

“I’m already awake.” I said sitting up, “there haven’t been any phone calls have there?”

 

 

“No, not since Aunt Helen called about an hour ago,” my mom said quietly in the hopes of not waking up my younger brother, “and even if someone had, you’re practically sitting on the phone.”

 

“We’re now only about a minute away!” My dad said loudly as he shifted his attention back to the television and their dwindling countdown.

 

“Mom...” my seven-year-old brother whined without opening his eyes “has the world ended yet?”

 

“No William, it hasn’t. And it isn’t.” My mom replied.

 

“Well Mary said it was this morning...”

 

“Mary! I thought I told you not to tease him anymore.”

 

“I was only joking! It isn’t my fault no one can ever take a joke!” I said frowning as I tried to focus my eyes on the TV screen without the aid of my glasses.

 

“Ten more seconds...” My dad said, as always, keeping us posted.

 

“ten...nine...eight...seven...six...five...four...three...two...one...” I said counting softly to myself.

 

“Happy New Year!” my mother, father, and even little brother said at once in unison with the people on the television as NBC replayed the footage of the Ball Dropping in New York and Fireworks in Washington, DC.

 

I immediately ran to the window to see if anything interesting had happened, but Knox Court remained the same street it had always been with a low level of activity that fit the late hour. No mailboxes or cars spontaneously combusted, and the streetlights didn’t even flicker. All the anticipation for nothing. All the panic. All the stockpiling of food and money. All for not even a ripple in normal life. And so, being the disappointed sixth grader that I was I commenced to join half the East Coast and trudge upstairs to sleep.

 

Perhaps the only nice thing that came out of the entire Y2K ‘crisis’ was those wonderful Y2K COMPATIBLE stickers, partly because while they may seem rather annoying at first, they really do grow on you after a few years of staring at them. The stickers are also monuments to how incredibly odd humans can be, and may well be the only survivors of Y2K when you consider the fact that besides those stickers, most of it was built up on fears, gullibility, and stocked piles of Hershey bars all of which have long since dissipated. But those no-longer-so-gleaming 3” by 2” stickers still inhabit the now derelict computers living in places like Elementary schools and the garbage dumps across the US. And, of course, the garbage disposal of my old house.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------)(

 

Sam shook her pen for a moment trying to bring the last few drops of ink from her pen onto the paper. After failing horridly in this respect, she finally decided that this must be the end of the story and ate the last Reese cup to celebrate. Now all I have to do is wait... she thought as she ran up to place her application in the appropriate pile, knocking over her cello case and several unoccupied chairs as she went. As she trotted back to her seat she chances to look at her watch. three in the morning... 13 hours...not too bad I suppose... she thought as she curled up in her chair to wait for judgment.

Edited May 7, 2003 by troubled sleep

[autumn_sun]

=shakes fuzzy snakes at sam to give her good luck and screams=

 

THIS IS REALLY REALLY REALLY COOL!

[Elwen]

Very funny, Sam. I like this piece a lot. I wish I could write humor like this...but I'm an angst writer!

 

 

~Elwen~ (Lynne-ish, who eats angst flakes for breakfast)

[autumn_sun]

angst flakes! teeheee! Yes, I run by and comment again...Sam, you should really extend this into something...or bug the idiots in Peachtree to start a forensics thing & use it for an original work. -nod nod- ok, I'll stop making this into a chat room now!

 

~ the rather hyper Autumn Sun

[Ayshela]

(giggle)

very good!!!

[smallscale_mind_games]

*cackles* oh but Sam, the south WILL rise again! As will the USSR! *is dressed all in red for the nonexistant 'communist appreciation month'* So anyway, lovely story, I have very little doubt that you will be accepted! ^^

[Wyvern]

Troubled Sleep grumbles to herself as she leans back in her applicant easychair, impatiently awaiting the arrival of the reptilian Elder of Initiates. Melba, the Almost-Secretary of Initiates, paces back and forth through the office restlessly, equally angered at the overgrown lizard's long absence. Turning towards Troubled Sleep and gazing at her in pity, Melba clears her throat a few times, then speaks up in an extremely high-pitched, helium-filled voice:

 

"That damned lizard is extremely late again... and my voice hasn't recovered yet from biting into his giant peach balloon! Ugh, that wanna-be-dragon is evil in so many manners..."

 

As if on cue, at the mentioning of the word "evil", Wyvern suddenly strides into the office through the front entrance. Pausing for a moment and cringing in distaste at the word "manners", the overgrown lizard guzzles some Bruteweiser Booze ™ and belches a few flames before seating himself at his desk. Brushing aside numerous leftover AoA candy wrappers and money graphs from his workplace, the greedy Elder snatches up Troubled Sleep's application story and procedes to read over it a few times.

 

After having finished, the sinister lizard turns towards the eager application, grins, and hisses:

 

"Ahhhh yesssss... your story evokes the fondest memories of one of my numerous schemes, though the recollections turn sour when the scheme fails miserably."

 

"Scheme...?" questions Troubled Sleep curiously, picking up her application sheet from where Wyvern had left it and skimming over it to affirm the notion that she hadn't brought up any schemes in her story...

 

"Well..." responds Wyvern "... the entire Y2K warning was actually one of my many failed plots. I had wanted everyone to go for broke and buy all of the supplies they could from me before it hit, but for some reason I didn't take product competitors into consideration..."

 

Wyvern sighs for a moment, then swiftly brightens up and flashes an evil grin.

 

"But this time, I won't lose! I've stolen a special vial of Y05/09/03K Virus straight from the laboratory of Doctor Evil, which should take effect on the date specified should I choose to unleash it! I'll bring the world to it's knees!"

 

"Ummm, Wyvern..." interrupts Troubled Sleep thoughtfully "... if it's supposed to be a computer virus, how can it come in a vial?"

 

Wyvern's facial expression goes blank and he stares at the vial for a moment, hesitantly noting that Troubled Sleep does have a point. Sighing to himself, the lizard stamps her application ACCEPTED before mumbling:

 

"I wonder what this vial is used for, then...?"

 

...

 

Several hundred miles below the Pen's surface, in the fashionably designed Super Top Secret Evil Headquarters of Doctor Evil ™, the villainous Doctor notices that the vial containing his formula comprised of 5 drops of maliciousness, 9 drops of evil, and 3 drops of politeness is missing, rendering his plans of creating an army of evil Peredhil clones and overrunning the Polite Magi obsolete...

 

;-p

 

OOC: An ACCEPTED application, Troubled Sleep, welcome to the Mighty Pen! My apologies for the lateness in responding, your story was well written and entertaining... Be sure to either post your e-mail address here or mail me at elitwack90@hotmail.com, so I can send you some additional info. Once again, welcome!

[Tamaranis]

I should have known you had something to do with that "Y2K" mess, Wyvern.

[troubled sleep]

Sam smiled rather largely and muttered 'thank you' several time, all the while staring at the 'accepted stamp' on her application as though she was afraid it would disapear. It was in this state she moved to leave the Recruiters office, nearly forgetting her cello in the process. It was then, as she was halfway through the door she realized she had forgotton something rather important. So, feeling comfidant in the durablity of the case, she left her cello to prop open the door and ran back to the office's center desk.

 

"Thanks again..and by the way, I'm ostrich_in_china@yahoo.com"

 

Unsure of whether or not she'd been heard, but feeling the need to rescue her cello from an incoming applicant, she dashed back to the door and left.

Edited May 10, 2003 by troubled sleep

[Alaeha]

Peredhil... evil? Even in a genetically altered clone, is that even possible? That would be an oxymoron, like Celibate Succubus, wouldn't it?

 

Anyway, congratulations on your acceptance! Looking forward to more humor. We need more light-hearted work here.

[Gyrfalcon]

You haven't played Planescape: Torment, have you?

 

One of your companions is, indeed, a Celibate Succubus.

[Alaeha]

Afraid I haven't... though a game with creatures like that would be kind of interesting. It doesn't surprise me too much that there's a Celibate Succubus somewhere though. It just has that sort of ring to it, so someone would have to play with the idea... But an Evil Peredhil would still be rather strange.

[Ayshela]

(giggle) to say the least!

[Finnius]

In all honesty, that was almost exactly what I did on New Year's 2000. Except, I stayed up with a friend, and we waited for the non-existent wall of fire that was supposed to sweep over the horizon, marking the precise toll of midnight, as demarcated by the local time-zone.

 

And, I must say; living in South Carolina, I wouldn't want to be buried in Georgia either. Or here.

 

Or really anywhere in the immediate area. I've settled on cremation, after which my ashes will be mixed into vodka and shot by my friends. Now I just have to get them to agree...

 

The point is, that was an excellent piece!