I
am in the Library at Foothill again. In the
long reading room with the high ceilings, wood-paneled
walls, stained glass window, and so on as you know by now. This is a
new life.
I did some auditing
and assessment.
I will change my life. I have changed
my life. I’ll
do my own work only. I will drive myself
only. I will go where I want to go only. No one will stop me on my way.
No more
Willson the ‘Patient Listener’ to all I happen upon. No more. I now
listen to
myself. Only myself.
I
am going to be ‘Willson of the National Research Center.’ I am on to my
life’s
work! But I have to wait a month or so before I start there. They have
to
carefully check my Permanent Record. Again. Until then a time for
hiking in the
Black Mountains, long days out in nature alone for more auditing
and assessment of my life.
Time for reading and writing. To tell my Journal about my new life with
the National
Research Center. What all I had to do to be there. I am in the Library
at
Foothill again. In the
long reading room. I begin with some reading of the current news
reported from
around The Nation.
Good
to read that Jared’s band The Bad Apples
is doing so well now. They are already having their own concert on The
Pier next
month. The performance will feature their new composition Presenting
the Management Team (The Workplace Suite). The article
reassures those who attend that the band will perform favorites from
the Suite such as You have a Bad
Attitude, We Work as a Team Here!, Its Because of the
UNION!, Flesh it Out! (The Report is too Short.), You
are NOT Going to Get It! (That Promotion you did NOT Apply for.), Cool It (or You WILL go back to the Mail
Room), and Sitting Waiting (Outside
the Office Door). The article continues to say the band will be
introducing
a new song Will I Be a Good Apple Someday?
I will be sure to go.
And
yes more in the papers about Fightin’ Bubba’s wife saying how she urges
Bubba
not to run for President. Of course! A Full Gathering of Family urged
same.
Faithful long-time Descendant servants and Noble old Indigenous
gambling casino
managers also. Fightin’ Bubba’s long-time friends and colleagues saying
they
urge Fightin’ Bubba’s to say no. About Fightin’ Bubba’s personal prayer
meeting
with Tellin’ Bubba and the answer that Fightin’ Bubba’s shall not.
Regular
scheduling of Fightin’ Bubba’s at his fake ranch in LoneStar saying he
has
listened to family and friends and will not. Now Fightin’ Bubba’s will
still
continue to serve his country by being a spokesman for issues that are
important to the freedom and prosperity of the people. Will have
Regular
International Affairs briefings by brilliant Nation’s Security
Principal
Advisor Druhl. And will withdraw now for
a while to a planned and well deserved working vacation at the Ranch
with his
friend, famous election campaign strategist ‘Slim’ Blaasem (a cousin it
says).
Other
newspaper articles that analyze these statements emphasize the
differences in
the two cultures the two un-candidates come from. There is a photo of
Brightly and
his Advisors all swinging wackers. In the photo of Fightin’ Bubba and
his Advisors
they hold chicken sandwiches. How these differences will be important
in the
contest they are not going to have. Goes to further demonstrate the
‘deep Cultural
War’ dividing The Nation.
So
no one is going to be President? There always seems to be someone doing
that
back there. And the usual story about another high government official
found to
have been dead while service in office. This time one of the High Court
members. No surprise here, not a member that ever showed much life
anyway. So
he still needs someone to tell him what to decide. Nothing new, he
always has. And
the conclusion that there will be no replacement because the
Constitution does
not specifically say a dead justice can’t serve on the Court. So maybe
no
President at all would not matter. Things would go on like they have
anyway I
think.
Well
enough reading, enough of keeping informed. Now some writing and maybe
later today
time for a hike in the Black Mountains. Now to tell about my adventures
getting
my job at the National Research Center.
***
[Editors’
note: The
section that follows is odd. We trust our translation though. Who could
believe
that an interview and evaluating process trying to learn if an
applicant is
qualified for a position would behave such a way or ask such questions?
Since
this all came out well for Willson is it possible he invented some or
all of
this as a parody?]
The
first thing I had to do to get a job at the National Research Center
was to write
down answers to questions written on a stack of papers, my Life History
(a part
of my Permanent Record). Wherewhen was I born. Proof of my Birth
(really!). Where
did I go to school, what did I study there, including records that
prove all
that. Favorite color. Baby picture. What jobs did I have. Record of
Military
service. References who could speak for my character. A Personal
Spiritual
Growth Essay. And so on. I mailed the papers in and waited for several
weeks. Then
I received a phone call to attend my First Screening in the Screening
Gateway
Division of the People Resource Department. I had to go there before I
could be
allowed to continue to the Application Process.
The
Gateway office is not at the National Research Center itself but in an
office
in the newest tall building in downtown Foothill on an upper floor that
is
entirely reserved for the use of the Center. There are Security Guards
protecting the special lift to the floor as well as Guards on the floor
itself.
I wish they would put these lifts inside the buildings. At least now
they have
railings around them most everyplace, except LoneStar. [?
Editors.]
I had to be searched at both Guard Stations. Then
I was told to wait outside an office for my scheduled appointment and
about twenty
minutes after the scheduled time of the appointment a Guard led me into
the
office and had me sit on a small chair in the middle of the room facing
a large
desk under a large window. Behind the desk sat a well-dressed woman
with hair
pulled straight back who did not look at me for some time. She held a
small
notebook and pen close to her face. When she looked up at me a look of
pity appeared
on her face; that look came back every time she looked directly at me.
Or
I should say when she looked at me. She looked off to the side mostly
as she
asked me such questions as “Is this the little school you went to? Do
you have
a little wife?” Then silence for some more minutes as she wrote in the
little
notebook, scribbling fiercely. More minutes as she angrily turned
through pages
of the little notebook. Suddenly, her head up and off to the side “we
are
finished here.” I jumped out of the chair and I don’t know if my feet
hit the
floor until I was back outside the office again.
I
thought that was all to there was to that for Willson until several
days later to
my surprise I received a Special Document instructing me to attend the
Assessment Process in the People Resource Department Assessment Unit.
So anyway
now I am getting as far as being on the actual grounds of the place.
Very much
a place of wonder and talk in the Foothill area, and beyond. The
National
Research Center starts at the foot of the Black Mountains and nobody
can tell
you how far it goes after that. There are stories told of how big the
Center is
and then other stories that no one knows really how big the Center is.
That
people who have worked there their whole working life have only seen a
small
part of it. That it goes up the mountains, on into the spaces between
the
mountains, and tunnels way inside the mountains, and deep down into the
ground
below. Or so it is said anyway.
On
the day of my appointment, and after a sleepless night, I drove and
parked at
the end of a very large parking lot and walked a long ways until I
reached the
first Security Gate. At the second Security Gate one of the Guards
asked for my
Special Document and told me to wait. The first building is a very
large
windowless wall with a small, guarded doorway.
There was a group of workers a short distance down from the
doorway
standing up on ladders or on boards supported by ladders who seemed to
be
sanding and scraping the paint off the high wall. There was a boss down
on the
ground walking back and forth looking up behind them. I then had close
to an
hour of walking around the rocky dirt yard between the second Security
Gate and
the doorway.
I
walked over close enough to the work party to hear what the boss was
saying. The
work group up on the ladders and platforms had Descendants and
Sonorans, but
not all of them were. The boss was a round soft man who did not stop
walking
and talking, or did not the whole time I was close enough to hear him
anyway.
‘Some of you don’t understand that you are here to get that paint off
that wall.
That is the original intent. I know you have families to feed so you
better
start working. There has been too much time wasted this morning.’ He
stops for
a moment, looks side to side his face filled with fear, and continues.
‘We
don’t pay you to talk. Lunch will be in place again today. Work with
one hand,
eat with the other. Maybe you will learn what we are doing here’. And
on and on
like that, with stops for more fearful looks around. I saw a perfect
size piece
of wood over on the ground. I was very close to picking up that perfect
tool
and swinging it at the round man’s head. Or imagining picking up that
perfect
tool and thinking how good it would be to swing it at the round man’s
head.
Then one of the Guards walked up and motioned me to follow. As we
walked back
towards the door I was able to catch his eye and we exchanged looks. He
looked
quickly around and quietly said “contract workers, we call ‘workers
outside the
wall’. I was there. This is better.”
The
Guard left me at the small door where another Guard took me inside. And
then I
had a long day and while there, briefly: The Initial Hoop Test (for
resolve and
desire). Toe clippings for medical testing. Intelligence tests. The
Generally
Accepted Right Kind of Person Inventory Instrument test. Societal
Footprint
Test. Intermediate Hoop Test (for humiliation and mortification). Hair
sample
for medical testing. Premonissed Potential test. The Final Hoop Test
(for
redemption and acceptance). Somehow after all that back through the
dark with
sore feet and ankles to my car. And so on to wait for The In-Personal
Review.
Then after another week, a day after the special deliver letter comes,
the
special delivery Armored Car with Police Escort comes to take me to The
In-Personal
Review. After another sleepless night before.
(continued
on Page 2)
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