The Job of Imagination

She’s in a job interview, I ordered a coffee and bacon avocado scramble - already, we are not the same, we are leagues apart, she is trying to get somewhere in life while I open a novel, absorbing nothing but exactly what I choose, what I find inspiring.

This job interview is uninspiring. I am sitting at an outdoor cafe, across from a very bored manager of some Very Important organization, probably, he‘s yawning repeatedly, he has taken time out of his Very Important schedule to be here. The girl is trying way too hard to make a good impression. She started by saying: “Hi, sir, so glad to finally have the pleasure of meeting you! I’m Malia.”

He is asking her asinine questions, one after the other, Malia is getting dealt a bad hand - on purpose, seemingly. The manager of the Very Important organization is dealing her ones, twos, threes - no aces, no kings. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” Jesus to God, my good lord. I get up, wipe fallen avocado off my dress, and walk over to Very Important manager and Malia.

”Malia! So good to see you!”

Her face looks confused, and then panicked. She has no idea who I am - and it is in that moment that I could be absolutely anyone, either to her or myself.

“Malia sat in on one of my poetry lectures recently, she’s engaging and bright.”

Malia looks perplexed, flabbergasted, every word for horrified while trying to remain dignified. I am now a poetry professor, perhaps at a Very Important school. I am someone I can respect, and as I walk away, back to my novel and eggs, I have transformed.

Evidently, I also transformed their entire conversation, the entire job interview.

Funny how a little insanity can really make things interesting.

While I’m finishing my novel and eggs, lost in a painless reverie, one where I am a poetry professor and writing books of my own, I see Malia and the manager get up and shake hands. It’s over.

Then, the Very Important manager comes up to me and asks if he can refill my coffee.

For, you see, people are only what we make them out to be in our imaginations.

I’ll probably never see Malia again. But then I realize - she was applying to a job at this very cafe where I am sitting, and this is my favorite cafe - with any luck, for either of us, I’ll see her again, probably very soon.

I wonder if after Malia left, she looked up poetry lectures, trying to find me.

I wonder if all we‘re ever looking for is to imagine others as they fit into our own imaginations.