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“Windowless UFO”
William Auten
Copyright William Auten
Thursday Thrills & Spills — Tell Us All the Good & Bad loads on Cassie’s other screen while she pauses clicking Upload Your Résumé and reads the post from a member who replied under a meme of unicorns, rainbows, and rocket ships surrounding a cat typing on a keyboard.
Six hours on Monday. Four Tuesday. Thirty minutes yesterday. Lost steam after all those hours searching and applying to 1 job I know I qualify for (but the tradeoff would be a high-cost-of-living city), 3 that require more degrees (not going back to school), and 7 I have 0% chance at (YOLO!). I have to aim for this else I’d be on my couch next to my dog smoking a bong, binging shows, and eating Popeyes all day. Or being on here all day LOL.
Keywords, phrases, sentiments repeat while Cassie scrolls: worst job market in years; keep myself busy with applying, working out, reading, chores, hobbies; ghosted after applying; just want a break from it all but can’t take a break from it all. She submits her post.
My temp opportunity fell through Tuesday. Second one in a row. Fourth one in a month. The office I could’ve gone to probably would’ve dropped me. It was “administrative work,” and everyone on here knows what that’s code for. My schedule of applying and searching until evening keeps me sane. I have a daily goal. One application everyday. And then just one more after that as a goal. I would like a break, but one more is a good goal to get me through. “The journey not the destination.” Everything else can wait I tell myself.
She pivots to her other screen and tweaks her job search but watches for replies to her post.
I mean I get you, yeah “the journey not the destination”/having a schedule is key, but the creeping sense of doom and no way out and feeling closed in are what get me…on this journey to a better destination.
Someone replies with an image of a silhouette dangling by a thin rope over a dark chasm before scrambling up. Cassie can’t tell if that’s for her, the reply, or both; nor can she tell if the silhouette pulled itself up or something in the dark pulled the silhouette up.
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