Fred Aiken Writing

Tag: writing

May 8, 2024

A Job Interview

Vicky realized she would be late to the job interview the moment she woke up. It would not matter how quickly she rushed through her morning routine, nor the steps in her routine that she could shorten, like using a Listerine strip rather than brushing her teeth for a full 2 minutes like her dentist had recommended back in the 10th grade when she went in for her sixth cavity of her childhood.

So, while Vicky sat in traffic on I-729, or, as her mom would colloquially refer to it as, Molasses Lane, she thought it wouldn’t hurt to take a small swig from the flask her ex-boyfriend got for her 2 Christmases prior. He hadn’t been her ex when he gifted her the flask, though. In fact, they had been in a happy relationship for the past 3 years, and she had even considered marrying him, if he had asked. But alas, he had not. Rather, her ex-boyfriend had found it more prudent to cheat on her with a coworker of his instead of asking Vicky to marry him. Now all she had to remember him by was the flask, and she used it quite regularly to forget about him as much as possible.

But she does not have a problem with alcohol. 

So she keeps telling herself.

She figured she could take a couple of gulps from the flask in the parking lot right before rushing into the door. Perhaps the liquor would give her the confidence to come up with a brilliant excuse as to why she was running late and why the company should still hire her despite her running late.

First impressions. First impressions. A small voice dawdled through her head.

A part of her also consistently chose chaos, and she assumed that because she was running late to the job interview, she might as well take the edge off and let out the sting of not being hired once again. Essentially, reject the job before the job rejected her. Something like that. The logic was definitely nestled somewhere in what she convinced herself of. Also, the liquor helped with the searing headache.

A warming calm washed over her. She pulled down the sun visor and checked herself in the mirror. She noticed beads of sweat washing down her face, ruining what little makeup she had on. But nothing too noticeable. She knows she looks a mess. Though perhaps it will be to her benefit. She’s both received a free beer or two for either looking pretty and looking disheveled, depending on the night. So maybe she would get a sympathy hire. One could hope, she thought.

Another swig for good luck.

Good luck, she said into the sun visor.

The interview was a complete mess. She didn’t need the hindsight of sobering up to realize that. She slurred her words. She was pretty sure the hiring manager looked deep within her soul to be able to tell that she was a no good, lying, piece of shit, or perhaps he was amazed someone’s eyes could be as blood-shot as hers that early in the morning. At the end of the interview, she expected to get up as gracefully as she could in her condition, shake the guys hand, and walk out to her car where at least she could take another sip from her trusty flask that never judged or cared how much she drank.

Instead, she heard the words she was least expecting to hear that day. “Welcome aboard. We’re glad you’re here. We think you do well.”

The man in a white lab coat shook her hand and then had Vicky sign a stack of papers before ushering her into a brand new role to fill. A new job, a new life, a new everything, she imagined. Perhaps she would finally be able to get control.

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May 7, 2024

matcha//soul

i drank a gallon of matcha tea
to see if it would cleanse 
my soul,

but instead, it kinda gave me indigestion,
as the matcha powder clogged my arteries

and made standing kinda difficult,
so now i run everywhere i go
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May 7, 2024

Commune with the Community

Daily writing prompt
What do you do to be involved in the community?
View all responses

This question seems intentionally vague and a bit misleading. I assume it’s suggesting what one does in the capacity of a volunteer in the community, but I suppose I’d have to ask what community? This being a globalized, post-industrial, age-of-the-internet sort of world we live in, community could certainly mean quite a few things.

In terms of my local community, not much. I don’t really volunteer all that much. Though I will occasionally give blood. In a non-volunteer capacity, I interact and am involved in my local community on a daily basis. Unless one has agoraphobia, I imagine it would be fairly difficult to not be involved with one’s local community in some capacity. I go to local farmer’s markets, dine at local restaurants, maintain a nice relationship with my neighbors, and, I suppose most importantly of all, I pay my local taxes. Sales tax, state tax, property tax. There are probably a few others. But I do feel like those count as involvement with one’s community in some capacity.

Though perhaps I’m just trying to make excuses for myself for my lack of involvement as a volunteer for my community.

In terms of an internet community, the only social media I have is WordPress, and that involvement mostly revolves around reading others’ posts. Commenting, liking, giving others small serotonin boosts with tacit forms of approval. Which isn’t to say I’m trying to denigrate such a practice. I think finding your people, even when it’s on a digital platform, is always an important part of life.

I suppose, now that I think of it, I do interact and have involvement with other internet communities. Mostly when it comes to coffee. There’s the Roaster’s Guild community that I interact with, either by contributing data and information about my own experience roasting, or going to the yearly Roasting Retreat that the guild hosts all over the country. And then there’s the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA), that I’ve been involved with for quite some time. I’ve garnered quite a few certifications by attending various courses to learn more about the field.

There are certain communities I do wish I was more involved with. There’s the writing community, though I suppose that community is kinda spread out and difficult to fully define. In fact, one might even say that participating and being involved on WordPress is a form of involvement with a certain segment, a rather large segment, of the writing community. So, yeah, maybe I am as involved as I need to be with regards to the writing community.

There are probably a few other communities and social activities that I’m involved in that I haven’t really thought about. There was a time when I considered myself misanthropic and antisocial. In fact, as a teenager I was even diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. But that was also at a time in which I romanticized Dostoevsky’s and Hemingway’s respective mental illnesses. I also listened to a lot of punk rock back then, too. In fact, I still do. Though I wouldn’t go so far as to make the Tipper Gore argument that the music made me antisocial. With time and perspective, and quite a few grey hairs, like more grey hairs than I thought I would have in my mid-thirties, I realize that I felt out of place. I didn’t have much of a community.

Nowadays, given some thought, I would say I have quite a few different communities. Some of which I interact with minimally. But most of which I have some form of involvement pretty frequently. I’m also kinda looking forward to the future communities that I more than likely will be a part of. Like the old man community, where I get to complain about my hip while drinking prune juice all the time. And maybe I’ll join a few communities that I don’t even realize I wanted to be part of but I just sort of fell into them. Who knows. There’s a lot of people out there. So I wouldn’t put it past coming across one or two of them at some point.

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