Curriculum Vitae

“Portal Advanced Human Resources”, the white letters filled the black acrylic panel’s fifth and last column. A Quality Analyst position, an eighty thousand dollars per year salary, an implant to increase his wife’s breast volume and reduce the one of her voice, an Internet boost that would accelerate Junior’s virtual massacre, an ESPN plus NFL subscription to cure his Sunday depression. Carl Miller snapped his short fingers to the possibilities waiting behind door number fifty-one. A cockroach stretched its antennae beyond the oak reception desk redrawing Carl Miller’s face in a disgust mask. The thin toe of his black elevation shoe crushed, severed, and zigzagged the insect’s head across the lobby’s checkered floor. He wiped his shoe sole on the desk corner, felt his brown wig, made sure his bald spot was still hidden, tied the knot on his navy-blue tie, dusted off his gray suit, and crossed the lobby. He pressed the elevator button until noticed a notepad sheet stuck to its steel door, the word “Portal” at the top, the six black letters forming a circle. He ripped off, brought it closer to his eyes. “Use the stairs”, said the exquisite handwriting. He stuffed the note in his pants pocket, grabbed the cold bronze handrail and sped up the stairs.

A granite steps spiral led him to the first floor. The sickly yellow light embedded in the ornate plaster faded down the gray walls until it died on the dark wood flooring. The Call Cash Lending Office triple-lock door was open, the reception lamp showed a silhouette of a short man scratching his bald head.

“Such a bit of luck finding you, cousin Carl.” He opened his arms. “My roof has a leak, and the water has deep-rotted all the wood frame. If I don’t change it, the ceiling could collapse in Penny’s and my head while we are watching the late show.”

A new, huge TV would fill the void in Carl Miller’s living room.

“I didn’t reach the minimum salary requirement.” His cousin’s bitten thumbnail pointed back. “I need to get the roof fixed, so I have to ask you back that money you asked me for when they fired you.” He extended a trembling hand.

Carl Miller palmed his cousin’s chest, pushed him into the office, closed the door, quickened his pace, took the next flight of steps.

The tip of a cane emerged from the law office on the second floor and hit his big toe.

“Now you will face consequences for ignoring my warnings about those awful profanities screamed by Junior while playing day and night those loud games.” The round white hair around her withered face resembled the ceiling’s dusty globe light. “I have just filed this legal action!” The paper sheet in her hand and the ruby crucifix in her black dress chest shook.

“Will we ever gonna move from this crummy apartment?”, the wife complained every time she sat her butt on the couch. The new salary could afford a suburban house mortgage.

“Better get ready to pawn this dirty wig of yours to pay me!”

Carl Miller snatched it from her bulging-veined hand, threw it on the floor, tap danced on the paper full of stamps, and took off towards the next floor.

A cockroach’s antennae probed the stairwell at the top step edge. He crushed the insect’s head, and wiped his shoe on the wall corner. The corridor appeared, disappeared, in the milky glass shell blink. Between those sconce oscillations, the door with the plate “Dr. Herbert Stevenson – Obstetrician” opened, a colossal female shape filling its frame.

“Carl? My God, I waited so long for a message from you...” The blonde brushed his wig down the neck. “At first I laughed at this thing always curled up, then I felt sorry for you.”

He reached into the suit pocket, slid his thumb across the cracked screen. That outdated cell phone could embarrass him in the new corporate environment.

“You hunted me through every company corner as if I were some kind of trophy, didn’t give me room until you took me to bed.” Her knees tightened around his hips.

The cell phone just released at the mall’s store would certainly arouse the envy of his future coworkers. Her hand weighed on his shoulder.

“I showed you the test and proved to you I was as pregnant as your wife. You begged time to get a divorce, dragged me to the company cafeteria, and brought me an orange juice to calm me down. The thing was quite sweetened and I didn’t notice that you laced it with the abortion medication that you had already forced down your wife’s throat.” She dug her red nails into his shoulder. “After being fired you disappeared, leaving me to deal with the miscarriage complications alone.”

The shell swayed into darkness. He slapped her wrist, freed himself from that heavy hand and fled upstairs.

On the fourth floor, almost leaning their backs against each other, the skinny man in white industrial overalls went up and down with the brush, giving the right wall a black painting and the skinny man in black industrial overalls went down and up with the brush, giving the left wall a white painting. That smell made him sneeze. He climbed the curve of the flight, huddled against the handrail, avoided the figure in a beige blouse and black skirt that was losing her CV pages while falling down the steps.

“Don’t come back, you don’t belong here.” The hoarse sentence came from above.

Carl Miller ran up the stairs, printing his shoe sole on Lisa Otero’s resume photo smile.

He rushed through the fifth floor, bumped his shoulder against the wrinkled old man in a blue suit dangling an unlit cigarette in his lips, brushed his tight against the hip of the redhead in a fitted green dress dusting off the remaining white powder from her nostrils, pushed out of the way a pale man in a brown suit rubbing a rabbit’s foot all over his resume and, then, reached the door to room fifty-one. “Portal Advanced Human Resources”, white letters stretched across a black acrylic. He felt his wig, tied his tie, dusted his suit and knocked.

“Can I help you?” Only her nose escaped into the corridor.

“I have an interview scheduled for the Quality Analyst position.”

Five long fingers squeezed him through the crack into the reception area. His gaze went from the feet encased in the white square shoes, climbed the gray jumpsuit that outlined her slender body from the ankles to the neck, reached a black beret tilted by her gray curly hair. She sealed off the noise outside that claustrophobic reception, and took refuge behind the high-brushed steel table, rubbing her back against the plastic ducts tangling up the walls.

“Please take a seat.”She picked up the black fountain pen and underlined his name in the white diary.

Carl Miller shrunk himself to fit on the tiny metal stool in the small room corner. Sweat dripped down his nape. The main duct breathed a long-suffering sigh when threw a graphite cylinder onto the table. The woman unscrewed the lid, took the note, read the exquisite handwriting by moving her lips.

“You are expected in room 101.” She turned a crank behind the desk.

A rectangle retracted into the wall, revealing a tunnel tapering meter by meter to the distant white circular door. Sprouting from the walls, ancient switchboards were operated by faceless mannequins in tight-fitting white t-shirts, the word “Portal” forming a black letters circle in their backs. A yellow light flashed in the contraption to his right, the hoarse voice propagated through a circular speaker that replaced the mannequin’s mouth:

“Yes, the position is a surgical scrub technician, no experience is required and the salary is forty-nine dollars and fifty-one cents per hour. Can we schedule the interview?”

Focusing on his shoes, he waded through the cacophony of job offers. A dizzy cockroach zigzagged in front of him. He decapitated the insect, dragged his head under the switchboard, and scraped his shoe sole on the last mannequin heel. He felt his wig, tightened his tie, dusted his suit, knocked on the white double door whose black acrylic hollow letter sign read “Room 101” in the right half-moon.

“You may come in.”

He responded to the hoarse invitation by dividing the metal sheets in half. The tiny round table, the children’s acrylic chairs, the floor and the walls followed the bright hospital white of the circular lamp embedded in that ceiling so low that forced him to bend over. Only the small table separated him from the Cockroach’s cunning big and small eyes. The smaller legs crossed behind her head, over which the white perforated bowler hat let the restless antennae escape. The second pair of legs was divided, one smoothed his resume, the other relaxed her white tie knot dropping it loosely onto the white vest fastened with large black buttons. The remaining two legs rested crossed on the table.

“Please take a seat.” The Cockroach bit the white pipe cigarette holder.

Carl Miller stuck his sweaty back against the child’s chair circular back.

“Is Quality Analyst the position you are applying for?” The cockroach blinked her big eyes and rolled the small ones across his resume.

“Yes.” He regurgitated his aversion.

“Are you in good health?” An antenna leaned over him.

“I never get sick.” He dodged the insect’s long appendage.

“Well, it states here that you presented seventeen sick leave certifications in two years.” The highlighter yellowed the resume.

“This was not put there by me!” It came loose from the backrest. “It was a flu outbreak, a lot of colleagues had to miss work.”

“Do you solve your tasks during working hours?”

“I’m one hundred percent efficient.”

“Your CV suggests that you abuse overtime. Is it a ploy to increase salary?” The antennas tilted the hat.

“When the supervisor overloads you with more work than hours you have no choice but to stay overtime.” His eyes narrowed.

“Do you contribute to efficient communication between different company areas?”

“I do my best to streamline the information flow.” He hid his shaking hand in the pocket. “I’m always thinking about the team.”

“Really?” The Cockroach grabbed, made a circle, and rested the pipe in the opposite corner of her mouth. “It has been reported that you encourage a toxic environment by spreading malicious rumors about your coworkers and were even fired for committing sexual harassment.”

“This is a gossip from HR executive Gilda!” His neck shook, the wig slipped onto the forehead.

“I see.” She sucked the pipe. “Do you carry out cleaning protocols in your workspace?”

“I dedicated all care, all attention to the environment around me.” His chin raised.

“And what is your attitude towards insects?” She breathed a sweet cloud.

“I hate this curse!” He kicked the table. “I crushed them all!”

His sweaty fingers covered his mouth. The Cockroach stood up, knocked, emptied her pipe over his CV. Carl Miller jumped from his chair, collided with the ceiling, performed a quick turn, banged his fists against the inflexible door leaves.

“You should have been more sincere in your resume.” The Cockroach cornered him.

Breathing a long-suffering sigh, he lifted the seat by the back and forced its legs against that rigid abdomen. The Cockroach took it from his hands, smashed the white furniture on the wall, climbed the table, and fixed his shoulders with her smaller legs:

“It’s so rare to find a corporately correct coworker…”

The Cockroach bit, ripped off, chewed Carl Miller’s head from one side to the other of her mouth. The antennae moved wildly, her big and small eyes opened wide. The Cockroach spat out his wig.

THE END

Bio: Denis Winston Brum developed his writing skills working in the advertising business. He published the children’s book “As Férias das Fadas”, the Young-Adult book “As Quatro Linhas” and the adult book “Redemoinhos”, all in paperback. Denis Winston Brum also released the adult e-Book “Adiós Pampa Mía”

E-mail: Denis Winston Brum

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