Strategy

Ben Stavisky stands in the hallway of a limestone building. He is surrounded by other contestants, few are women, most are men.

            Everyone is waiting.

            This disappointed building reminds him of his old school. There’s a smell, of time, of age, that makes this place, somehow, confusing. He’s disturbed. All the waiting only makes him more irritated. Images are collapsing into one another inside his head. He can’t concentrate. He’s obviously thinking about a lot of things, too many things exactly. But everything is sort of short circuited, jumping around, while he tries to stay still, mentally. In short, right now, he’s everything but calm, can not be trusted, should not be trusted. And this mysterious smell in the air is the only thing slightly romantic about it.

            Of course, he will say, this, is never a good idea, all the time and energy wasted only to prove the fact that he’s not who he knows he’s not. He could have go on with his usual and familiar life, a life that’s almost comforting. But he just has to stand here, to embarrass himself to a degree that’s almost not healthy. This happens all the time. But he never learns how to stop.

            There are some who, at the first glance, are surely, people like him, with their hyperactive blinking of the eyes and the exaggerated nervousness. The smiles on their faces that’s not entirely facial expression marks the common hopelessness they share despite the overreacted pretence to act annoyed, at the door that just won’t open.

            But there are some who, also at the first glance, put them into a deeper despair. Take that Jap girl with the bright orange hair, or maybe wig, for instance, one of the few female competitors, wearing God-knows-what  anime costume and a pitch black heavy eye shadow that reminds him of the juicy filling of a Chinese sweet, sesame or something, who’s flipping through comics with a cigarette in her hand, not looking at anyone, probably can’t see anyone for she doesn’t need to, and no one matches her stare anyway. Or take that poor kid, gypsy or middle-eastern, who’s so poor that he probably smells. He holds on tight to a violin case, and on the contrary, staring at everyone, no fear, no uncertainty. Everybody knows that he must be more than a genius to get this far without a penny. And also that delicate looking man, well, there really isn’t anything too threatening about him, but man he’s pretty.

            And they, the rest, the normal, the low key, are a joke. Chances of waiting should be eliminated as possible now he comes to think of it.

            Rushed feet are heard down the hall. Several nicely suited bodyguards escort a fifty-ish man, dressed in a rather sophisticated style, with long limbs and a lean body, a straight face, gray short hair on top. The suddenness of this appearance, the swiftness of their steps makes it more like an attack. The Doctor stops amid the people. And the bodyguards fan out to all sides on cue. The Doctor stands still, observing the contestants around him with his brow arched and lips meanly tightened, likely mocking at those who circle him.

            The Doctor’s gaze sweeps past the girl with the orange hair, but than turns back to her for two more seconds. The girl still has the cigarette in her hand, loosely held on the tip of her index finger, while her other hand holds the comic book which still attracts most of her attention. The doctor doesn’t even try to hide his contempt at the sight of her. And Ben feels triumph.

            “That,” The Doctor points at the girl. And a nearby bodyguard immediately steps forward at the instant. “Can go.” The girl disappears almost at the same time, leaving no time to reflect, not even to close her comics. The Doctor obviously isn’t a fan of eyeliners.

            It’s only natural that people acted surprised. But in the meantime, it seems equally important to make a dashing first impression. Unfortunately, The Doctor just ignores these. He puts his hand on the back of the boy with the violin. The boy stares back with his clean, big, bright eyes, as if he can’t feel anything. The doctor tries to smile, it seems like, but he frowns instead.

            “You can go upstairs.”

            Now, people are really surprised.

            Another bodyguard steps forward and politely gestures to the boy to follow him. The boy turns to go with his limping, ugly, unbearable-to-look-at steps. Ben feels blood rushing into his ears and his head.

            “Okay. Which one of you is…” The doctor stops and turns to a tiny woman behind him, invisible till this moment.

            “Adam Bergman, sir.” The woman suggests.

            “Adam Bergman?” The doctor looks at the crowd.

            A medium built blonde raises his hand. He wears a light blue shirt tucked into silky khaki pants. He has proportionate facial feature and a set of thick brows, looking rich and Ivy League.

             “Tell me,” the doctor looks at him. “What’s the, sonic microwave? Random location? What is it? Where does that come from?”

            The blonde pauses for a second but quickly smiles confidently. “Simultaneous sonic ultra wave reconstructive self diagnosed identification is a kind of…”

            “That thing, where does that come from? How do you measure the ultra wave? And with what?” The Doctor interrupted.

             His smile fades a little. The blonde looks hurt, but he calmly proceeds. “Thousands of discarded CMOS of digital cameras and some, say, secret weapon.” The blonde smiles fully again.

            The Doctor arches his eyebrows even higher, if that’s physically possible. “Interesting. But how do you use it to create?” The Doctor challenges.

            The blonde pauses again, of course, everybody knows that’s for the theatrical effect. “A single point ultra wave is, well, a single point ultra wave.”

            The Doctor laughs, and people follow sue. That’s at least one simultaneity about the whole practice.

            The blonde now looks more confident, showing his teeth and speaking louder, he continues. “ But two parallel single point ultra waves subjected by two adjacent emitters,” The blonde puts both his index fingers together to demonstrate his theory. “ Interferes, with no possible prediction, each other’s direction.” There the blonde pauses again, but for another reason.

            “I see. And how do you do that?”

            The blonde looks at the Doctor in the eyes. “If you believe it, Xbox controllers.”

            The Doctor stares back at him with his eyes lit, after two seconds of silence, he announces. “You’re in.”

            Another bodyguard escorts the blonde guy away. People feel uneasy. If the Doctor must do this, they might be able tolerate the injustice bestowed for the benefit of the poor boy. After all, they are all responsible for what he has been through. But to allow this cocky Mr. I-have-it-all to pass without even a trial? That’s simply outrageous. It doesn’t even have anything to do with creativity. And all that crap about garbage and game handles, Ben can’t understand a stupid word of it. He kinda senses it’s something sexual. It can be some sort of secret language of these kinds. That’s why the Doctor’s all happy and intrigued.

            Now, the Doctor walks to yet another man whom he obviously met before. The Doctor mutters something in his ear, in a foreign language. The man looks around him nervously, and whispers something back. The Doctor leans back a little looking troubled, and nods. The man looks around him again and unfastens the first three buttons of his shirt, showing the Doctor the upper part of his chest. The Doctor, disgusted, looks in, as if requested to inspect a rotting wound. The Doctor’s frown suddenly relaxes, then becomes fascinated. Ten seconds pass, the man now looks rather impatient. The others watch, too. Then The Doctor nods again, for a moment, almost seems helpless. And waves to the guards, sending the third man upstairs before the audition officially starts.

            The surprise and withheld anger of the rest of the people now turns to simply wordlessness and silence. The Doctor circles around them again. Everybody tries to convince himself that he’s going to be the next. Even when the Doctor passes, they all assume he’s going to turn back to bravo on the stuff they lied on their resume. So they prepare their best speech on the tip of their tongue, ready to spit out any minute now. The poor Ben, can’t remember what’s on his application.

            But nothing happens. The Doctor instructs a staff member. Then without hesitation, literally storms out when bodyguard automatically circles him forming a despicable rain cloud. Hair is blown. Faces are dripping with defeat.

            Staff in gray uniform takes over. That long expected door finally opens. But it’s now unforeseeably depressing, marking the end of the real audition, and the start of the fruitless struggle. Even the staff doesn’t care. A woman with her hair tied up asks people to sit wherever they prefer.

            Assistants hands out pieces of paper, apparently examination sheets. People hold the paper in their hand, briefly look at the few capital letters printed on it, then quickly turn to look at the woman, motionlessly waiting for further instruction which holds the key to their ultimate fate and fortune.

            The woman looks back at the contestants, too. She tries to smile sweetly at first. But as if she can’t hide some devastating fact, like a medical test result, anymore, she sighs, and decides to break the bad news.

            “That’s all.”

            People look at her, listening for more.

            “Listen, that’s all. That’s it.” The woman reassures, “I mean, it. This is the only instruction we get. We don’t know what to do either.” The woman turns up her hands, meaning there’s no help nor explanation that she can offer. Then she goes back to smile benignly at the people, except she now has something to muse with.

            Muffled complains are heard, and of course, people try to look at each other’s paper, looking for clues they don’t have on their own. But soon, one after another, sinks in.

            Ben looks at the meaningless letters on his piece of paper, it was in the crossword puzzle section the last time he saw something slightly resembles what he’s looking at right now. And he hasn’t done any crossword puzzles since he was eight. It’s a decryption test. Ben is almost sure of it. But he can’t figure out why, a research team, needs someone good at pointless skills such as super ass kissing and this.

            Ben is still looking at the paper when he hears someone starting writing, the first fighter fights alone for three spare seconds, then the whole orchestra starts their pathetic portrait of the chaotic symphony. God knows what exactly they put down with their scribbling pens making scraping sounds when none of it makes sense.

            Ben writes “ooster” after a capital “R”. It’s easily to feel the frustration. He could put something more elegant, more sophisticated, more academic. He doesn’t even need to put “R” at the beginning, if he can call that creative. But he feels like he needs to do something a little reckless. Ben looks at the “Rooster”. Maybe he should be more dramatic, like the invisible hand on the wall before the feast of the king, announcing a deadly fate, ‘Repent’, or the last strength of a dying man writing with his own blood announcing the name causing his deadly fate, ‘Ronan’. Or maybe he should blacken the whole paper, but then it reminds him of the girl with the orange hair. Or maybe he should write ‘Screw you! What the hell is this?!’.

            Ben carries on with the ridiculous audition. Suddenly, the woman sitting in front of him screamed. People raise their heads to look at her, at each other, at the staff, then turns back to their destiny. The woman is looking for something on the ground, under her chair, under someone else’s chair, at someone else’s paper, then finally turns to Ben smiling.

            “Excuse me, it’s a, it’s under your chair.”

            Ben looks down. But remembering his work is now open before the woman, he picks up the piece of paper and presses it to his chest. The woman laughs nervously.

            “C’mon.”

            The woman bends down, trying to reach down when Ben looks down again and finds the hair ribbon now lying smirking just beside his old best shoes.

            “Well, do you mind?” the woman demands.

            Of course he does. Ben lifts his head at the staff who doesn’t seem to care. So he reaches down slowly, picks up the ribbon and hands it to the woman.

            Ben looks at the staff again. For a moment, he feels that he saw something like a sneer on their faces.

            “Shit.” Ben thinks. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He now suspects that the real audition, is not the piece of paper, but what they do, they, sitting there on these chairs. Ben panics. He shouldn’t pay any attention to that crazy bitch. He shouldn’t look. And worst of all, he shouldn’t pick up that ribbon. Jesus, bitch!

            Realizing this as well, the room starts to get out of control. A man stands up and starts chanting. He tries to make it sound like a pious poetry reading. But what’s spoken out loud are names of candies and exotic delicacy. Some one starts dancing, tearing out the paper, and not just his own. Someone starts singing the Broadway version of “Memory”. Someone breaks down, cries and runs for the door. Someone throws at the man just ran out. A woman starts stripping and touching herself. A man tries to touch her and they kiss. A man does the same. Another man tries to touch him and they kiss, all the same. Someone holds up a sign, protesting ‘Act now! You punk!’.

            Ben holds his pen tightly again. But when he looks at the stupid piece of paper, his head goes blank. He lifts his head, trying to ignore the cuddling foursome orgy. Then He spots the surveillance camera waving from the ceiling.

            “Fuck!” Apart from that. His head is still blank, not like ‘oh, I don’t know where to begin’, but like ‘blank’, ‘nada’, ‘blank”. He has no idea what he’s doing. He kind of senses he’s going to draw something, something to do with video games. But he just don’t know what he’s doing.

            “Hey! You!” The woman before him screams again, now directly at Ben. Ben lifts his head, staring with hatred at this woman that set him up and ruined everything, who, at the same time, from the same perspective, stares back, also with hatred, even to the more extreme, at the man who set her up and ruined everything.

            “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” The woman questions.

            “Wha?” Ben looks at the woman, doesn’t know what to say. He turns to the staff asking for help. The woman with her hair tied up, the one who speaks, sees him, but she shrouds, gesturing that there’s nothing she can do.

            “Right, we also have another instruction, not to interfere.” Then she turns away. The foursome group is now making all sorts of sounds.

            “Interfere my ass!” Ben shouts.

The woman before him now looks like she’s possessed by some evil spirit with her eyes turning upward, and mouth dripping.

“Why did you do that?! What have I ever done to you?!” The woman cries.

There’s also nothing he can do, nothing he can say. Ben wants to scream back. But he doesn’t know if that’s smart.

Ben looks at the woman, then turns to look at the piece of paper before him. He holds his pen tightly, looks at the woman, looks at the staff, and looks at the paper. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and looks at the paper again. He doesn’t know what to do. He has yet to prove that he, Ben Stavisky, despite all that, amid the mess, is also, without a doubt, highly talented. But how?