Entering a Cucoon-Like State

The hallways are always long, do you realize that? With the same tiles in the same pattern. They are always extremely long when you're nervous, though not so long when you're not--just long. Never short though. The room that holds the rest of your life is always the last room on your right.

"Why do you think I should give you this job?" the recruiter asked with a smile. He liked me, I could tell. He was a rather jovial person, this Tim, I had decided. Genuine charm, which is something more felt than learned. Sparked interest in people was his bread and butter, that was for certain.

Yet despite all this he has asked the inevitable question that always comes, like the last room on the right, at the end of job interview. This question is the gateway to the long hallway with your future being held captive in the last room on the right. The last pit of fire before reaching King Kupa, if you will.

Why do you think I want this job? I wanted to ask. A job is a job.

But instead I had smiled and shrugged. He waited, wanting to hear why it was I wanted this job. He knew what I thought. Some people actually say the first thing that comes to mind. But I thought about it. Was there more than just the want of an income and a way to spend my days that had brought me into Arlington's recruitment office?

Then I realized that wasn't the question. Why should he give me the job?

"Because I work" I said out loud, both to him and myself. His smile widened to a grin and he jotted down the answer, the grin tapping into laughter.

"That is the best answer I've ever heard" he admitted, offering his hand. "You're hired."

The beginning was really the fingerprinting though. I shed my life on those papers, documenting every apartment I had lived in, every job I had held in the last ten years. Apparently I move more than most people because I ran out of space and they had to add extra papers onto my background information packet for some contracted agency to go and check. Everything I had done.

"Here," the girl said as she traded me packet of paper for packet of paper. "You understand that having a conflicting job will subject you to possible termination?"

"Yes" I answered, stepping into the realization that I was signing my life into something new. From student, from office worker, from writer, into ramper.

I let everything happen around me as I sat and waited to clear. Every morning I got up, and every night I fell asleep, waiting. Memorizing city codes, and waiting. Doing push ups, and waiting. Watching the world pass me by, and waiting.

I stood in the mirror, watching as my mother trimmed my hair.

"How much should I cut?" she asked.

"Just chop it all off" I sighed.

"No, I wont. Rampers are rough people. It's a man's job. It's hard work that means having muscles, constantly moving. They don't sit around and think. They work. And the only thing feminine about you will be your hair."

I frowned but didn't answer, letting her cut six inches, leaving the other ten or so to hang just past my shoulders.

"I'm not going to be able to recognize you" John protested over the phone.

"It was only a trim" I reminded.

"But you had such long beautiful hair" he lamented.

"It's nothing; my hair is still relatively long" I shrugged.

"Are you sure this is what you want to do?" he asked hesitantly. "I mean, it's a good job and all, and the benefits are really good, but do you really want to be a ramper?"