Job interview / Entrevista de trabajo. The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #11 [ENG/SPA]

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This is my entry for The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #11

"Perfect! You're hired! Now go kill my desk."

I gasped when I heard the words of the man in front of me. And it's not because of how weird it sounds. It's totally normal for objects to take on a life of their own, and as natural as it sounds, they don't necessarily become killers of their owners. But it does happen sometimes.

I live in a world where magical creatures exist and humans are born with magical powers. We even have schools where you learn to master powers from a young age. Even in big cities like the one I've decided to move to, there are universities where you can specialize and become a supreme wizard or get a master's degree in the dark arts.

However, I am an ordinary human or should I say ¿Am I an atypical one?. Yes, I do know and have known since I was born, not a shred of magic passes through my blood. I am the sixth child my mother had (maybe it's due to the fact that we don't have a TV at home, but I never asked, I don't think it's an easy question to ask one's parents either) and we recently learned that magic degrades with increasing offspring. Obviously, I wasn't planned, who is? But, anyway, I was very much loved by my parents since I came into the world. I can't complain.

In my village, there are magic brooms, talking trees, fairies, gnomes, goblins. All kinds of magical creatures. I live far from the city, in a rural county. Here green abounds, everywhere you look there are meadows, mountains, forests. And yes, they are also enchanted.

Being a non-magical being, you can imagine the kind of bullying I had to live through. I would literally come home from school with a donkey tail, monkey ears, buck teeth, you name it. Obviously, my parents knew the counterspells, and you may wonder, didn't my brothers and sisters help me? Well, yes, they did, like any close-knit family, it is only natural that they would help me, however, I was also a victim of their "experiments". Anyhow, I was the freak of the circus, suffice it to say.

Well, I grew up and decided to move to the city, where I thought I could get a job that didn't require magical skills. I figured you didn't have to be a level 3 magician to do a sales report, a certificate of income, or do the bookkeeping for a business.

And with that thought, I took the train and went to the capital of my country. Most at my age, use a flying broom, summon a magic portal or simply teleport with a spell. But, being a non-magician, I had to take a train. Trains rarely carried people, usually used to carry food, raw materials, animals, and other objects.

The city was totally gray, cold, and dark, full of buildings and millions of people. I had never seen so many people together. Nor did I know that they had pet fairies and gnomes, and incredible as it seemed, they served as butlers. I guess they had to make a living somehow.

I had finished my senior year of high school and thought that was enough to get a reasonably lucrative job. But to my misfortune, the interviews required a demonstration of one's magical abilities. And as you may already know, for all my interviewers it was something unusual, I won't say that I was as unusual as a unicorn, since they abounded in the shire. Although in the city it was very difficult to find them.

They were always amazed at my inability to do magic, yet I never got any kind of employment. Until one day I was in the office of a local newspaper and had been waiting for the result of the interview of a friend I met in the waiting room, who had the ability to make publications and printed articles in seconds. A simple spell, he had told me.

"I'm sure it would," I replied without having any idea what he was talking about.

He was a very nice and eloquent person, I guess that was very good quality for a job in a publishing house. As usual, I didn't get the job but decided to wait for the friend I had just met.

As weird as it was, he suddenly fled without looking back with tears in his eyes and his clothes in rags, all full of scratches.

"God damn it!" shouted a menacing-looking man with a heavy build; he had a bushy gray beard and he was carrying a big half-finished cigar in his mouth.

A frightened thin girl quickly approached him.

"Bring me the next candidate," he ordered from the office door.

"I... I can't, sir... There is no one else, sir," stammered the girl shrugging her shoulders in anticipation of another blast from who appeared to be the head of the establishment.

"What about that one?" he asked pointing at me with his half-finished tobacco between his fingers

"He's a non-magician," muttered the girl.

"A what?" growled the boss. "Bullshit!"

"No... He doesn't have a shred of magic in his veins. Si... sir," stuttered the girl, glancing sideways at me.

And there it was again, the freak, the outcast, the exile... Yet the boss was unfazed by the girl's news. He scratched his beard and glanced at me.

"Hey, you!" he turned to me and I stood up so fast I looked like I'd had a spring in my ass.

"Yeah?", I answered immediately.

"Do you know how to work with wood?" he asked out of the blue.

"Of course," I replied and was about to explain what I used to do in my hometown, but again he exploded into a series of words that left me dumbfounded

"Perfect! You're hired! Now go kill my desk."

Although I initially wanted to corroborate whether he had really said what he had said, I didn't have time to do so. Immediately, he opened the door to his office, and with a slap on my back, nearly knocking my lungs out of my mouth, he shooed me inside and closed the door behind me.

And there I was, all alone next to a desk that was snarling and showing its ferocious fangs formed of splinters. A pair of hollow holes served as eyes.

It lunged at me and I made a couple of leaps over it to keep it from hurting me.

It was clear that magic had no effect on it.

"Listen to me very carefully, desk," I pointed out in a firm voice.

"I know you've been treated badly and I know it by the dents, burns, and scrapes I can see all over you," I explained.

"I know that everyone who has come in has wanted to hurt you," I added.

"I too have suffered a series of unfortunate events and I know what it's like to be ostracized by people who don't understand you."

The lady interviewer approached the newspaper boss, who was still arguing loudly over the phone. She paused, doubting whether she should interrupt him.

After a few minutes that seemed like hours, finally, the boss noticed her.

"What are you doing standing in front of me?" the boss blurted out.

"Am I paying you to do nothing?"

"B-B.. Boss..," she hesitated for a moment and continued, "It's been over an hour since the boy hasn't left your office," she reported biting her finger cuticles.

"It's a shame. He's dead for sure." asserted the boss with a shrug.

He took a bite of his stinky cigar, inhaled, and after releasing a puff of smoke, got up and went straight for the office.

"Call the police, possibly we have to make statements to the authorities about the poor devil's demise," he added before opening the door.

His eyes widened and the cigar fell from his mouth as he found me happily patting the desk.

"Later I'll tell you about the time when I met a lamp who suffered from chronic hiccups and how I did to cure it," I exclaimed so that everyone could hear me

The desk hissed something akin to a small laugh.

See you next time, space cowboy.





Esta es mi entrada para The Ink Well Fiction Prompt #11

“¡Perfecto! ¡Estás contratado! ¡Vaya y mate a mi escritorio!”

Me quedé boquiabierto cuando escuché las palabras del hombre que tenía frente a mí. Y no es por lo raro que suene. Es totalmente normal que los objetos tomen vida propia, y por natural que suene, no necesariamente se convierten en asesinos de sus dueños. Pero suele pasar.

Vivo en un mundo donde las criaturas mágicas existen y los seres humanos nacen con poderes mágicos. Hasta tenemos escuelas donde aprendes a dominar los poderes desde pequeño. Incluso en las grandes ciudades como en la que he decidido mudarme, hay universidades donde puedes especializarte y convertirte en mago supremo o sacar una maestría en artes oscuras.

Sin embargo, soy un humano común y corriente o ¿debería decir que soy atípico?. Sí, lo sé y lo he sabido desde que nací, por mi sangre no pasa ni una pizca de magia. Soy el sexto hijo que tuvo mi madre (quizás se deba al hecho de no tener televisión en casa, pero nunca lo pregunté, tampoco creo que sea una pregunta fácil de hacerle a los padres de uno) y recientemente supimos que la magia se degrada con el aumento de las descendencias. Obviamente no fui planificado, ¿Quién lo es? Pero de igual forma, fui muy amado por mis padres desde que vine al mundo. No puedo quejarme.

En mi pueblo, hay escobas mágicas, árboles parlanchines, hadas, gnomos, duendes. Todo tipo de criaturas mágicas. Vivo lejos de la ciudad, en una comarca rural. Aquí el verde abunda, por donde quiera que mires hay praderas, montañas, bosques. Y sí, también están encantados.

Al ser un ser no mágico se imaginaran la clase de bullying que debía vivir. Llegaba de la escuela literalmente con cola de burro, orejas de mono, dientes de conejo, ustedes nómbrenlos. Obviamente, mis padres sabían los contra hechizos, y se preguntarán, ¿acaso mis hermanos y hermanas no me ayudaban? Pues sí, como toda familia unida, lo normal es que me ayudaran, sin embargo, también fui víctima de sus “experimentos”. Bueno, era el fenómeno del circo, basta decirlo.

Pues crecí y decidí marcharme a la ciudad, en donde pensaba que podía conseguir algún empleo que no requiriera de habilidades mágicas. Suponía que no había que ser un mago nivel 3 para hacer un informe de ventas, un certificado de ingresos o llevar la contabilidad de un negocio.

Y con ese pensamiento, tomé el tren y me fuí a la capital de mi país. La mayoría a mi edad, usa una escoba voladora, convoca un portal mágico o simplemente se teletransporta con un hechizo. Pero, al ser un no mágico, debía tomar un tren. Los trenes pocas veces transportaban personas, usualmente se usan para llevar alimentos, materia prima, animales y otros objetos.

La ciudad era totalmente gris, fría y oscura, llena de edificios y millones de personas. Jamás había visto tantas personas juntas. Tampoco sabía que tenían hadas y gnomos de mascota y por increíble que pareciera, servían como mayordomos. Supongo que debían ganarse la vida de alguna manera.

Había culminado mi último año de secundaria y pensaba que con eso bastaba para tener un empleo razonablemente lucrativo. Pero para mi mala suerte, las entrevistas requerían de una demostración de las habilidades mágicas que uno poseía. Y cómo ya deben de saber, para todos mis entrevistadores era algo insólito, no voy a decir que yo era tan inusual como un unicornio, ya que estos abundaban en la comarca. Aunque en la ciudad era muy difícil encontrarlos.

Siempre se asombraban de mi incapacidad de hacer magia, aun así nunca obtenía ningún tipo de empleo. Hasta que un día me encontraba en la oficina de un periódico local y me había quedado esperando por el resultado de la entrevista de un amigo que conocí en la sala de espera, quien tenía la habilidad de hacer publicaciones y artículos impresos en segundos. Un hechizo simple, me había dicho.

“Seguro que sí”, le respondí sin tener idea de lo que hablaba.

Era una persona muy agradable y elocuente, supongo que era muy buena cualidad para un trabajo en una editorial. Como de costumbre no conseguí el empleo pero decidí esperar por el amigo que acababa de conocer.

Para mi sorpresa, huyó repentinamente sin mirar atrás con lágrimas en los ojos y sus ropas hechas harapos, todo lleno de arañazos.

“¡Con un demonio!”, gritó un hombre con aspecto amenazador y de contextura gruesa; tenía una barba canosa y muy tupida; llevaba un gran habano en su boca a medio terminar.

Una delgada chica asustadiza se le acercó rápidamente

“Tráigame al próximo candidato”, ordenó desde la puerta de la oficina

“No.. No hay nadie más señor”, balbuceó la chica encogiéndose de hombros en espera de otra explosión de quien parecía ser el jefe del establecimiento.

“¿Qué me dice de aquel?”, preguntó señalándome con su tabaco a medio terminar entre sus dedos

“Es un no mágico”, murmuró la chica

“¿Un qué?”, gruñó el jefe. “¡Pamplinas!”

“No.. No tiene una pizca de magia en sus venas. Se.. señor”, tartamudeó la chica, mirándome de reojo.

Y ahí estaba otra vez, el fenómeno, el paria, el exiliado… Aun así el jefe no se inmutó ante las noticias de la chica. Rascó su barba y me echó una mirada.

“¡Oiga, usted!”, se dirigió hacia mí y me levanté tan rápido que parecía que hubiese tenido un resorte en el trasero

“¿Sí?”, respondí inmediatamente.

“¿Sabe trabajar con madera?”, preguntó de improvisto

“Por supuesto”, respondí e iba a explicarle lo que solía hacer en mi pueblo natal, pero de nuevo explotó en una serie de palabras que me dejaron estupefacto

“¡Perfecto! ¡Estás contratado! ¡Vaya y mate a mi escritorio!”

Aunque inicialmente deseaba corroborar si realmente había dicho lo que había dicho, no tuve tiempo de hacerlo. De inmediato, abrió la puerta de su oficina y de una palmada en la espalda, que casi saca los pulmones por la boca, me echó dentro de ella y cerró la puerta tras de mí.

Y ahí estaba yo, totalmente solo junto a un escritorio que gruñía y mostraba sus feroces colmillos formados de astillas. Un par de agujeros huecos hacían de ojos.

Arremetió contra mí y di un par de saltos sobre él para evitar que me hiciera daño.

Era evidente que la magia no tenía efecto sobre él.

“Escúchame muy bien, escritorio”, puntualicé con voz firme

“Sé que te han tratado mal y lo sé por las abolladuras, quemaduras y raspaduras que puedo ver sobre ti”, expliqué.

”Sé que todos los que han entrado han querido hacerte daño”, agregué.

“Yo también he sufrido una serie de eventos desafortunados y sé lo que es ser repudiado por las personas que no te comprenden”

La señorita entrevistadora se acercó al jefe del periódico, quien seguía discutiendo a toda voz por el teléfono. Se detuvo dudando si debía interrumpirlo

Tras unos minutos que parecieron horas, finalmente, el jefe se fijó en ella.

“¿Qué hace de pie frente a mí?” espetó el jefe

“¿Acaso le pago para que no haga nada?”

“Je.. Jefe..”, vaciló un instante y continuó, “Ya hace más de una hora que no sale el chico de su oficina”, informó mordiéndose las cutículas de sus dedos.

“Es una pena. De seguro ha muerto.” aseveró el jefe encogiéndose de hombros.

Mordió su apestoso tabaco, inspiró y tras soltar una bocanada de humo, se levantó y fue directo hacia la oficina.

“Llame a la policía, posiblemente debamos hacer declaraciones ante las autoridades acerca del fallecimiento del pobre diablo”, agregó antes de abrir la puerta

Sus ojos se abrieron de par en par y el tabaco cayó de su boca cuando me encontró felizmente acariciando el escritorio.

“Luego te contaré de la vez cuando conocí a una lámpara que sufría de hipos crónicos y de cómo hice para curarla”, exclamé para que todos me oyeran

El escritorio siseó algo parecido a una pequeña carcajada.

Hasta la próxima, vaquero del espacio.



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12 comments
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Thank you for the chuckle, and for the rollicking ride through a universe of casual magic. Your narrator is endearing, funny, and clever. You bring the rest of the characters to life with telling details. I'm not sure you need a story arc with such an idiosyncratic tale, but you have a strong one nonetheless.

A great application of the prompt. Thank you for posting this amusing story in the Ink Well community.

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I appreciate your comment very much. There are days when stories suddenly pop up that I enjoy writing ^_^

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I loved your world so different from all the magical worlds, @jadams, it was a very lively and fun read!

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I'm glad you love it ^_^

Thanks for coming by :D

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Hehe😁😁
A beautiful read indeed.
The narrator finds in the rogue desk a kindred spirit and that turns out to be the key to calming it.
That could even be his magical power🤔
This is really good, i loved every word of it. Good job @jadams2k18👍🏽

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That could even be his magical power🤔

Hehehe :D
It may not be his magical power but it is an innate quality even more powerful.

I'm glad you liked it, thanks for passing by ^_^

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This is fantastic, @jadams2k18. It is a great story, and rich with great details and also some wonderful touches of humor. The story put a smile on my face, and a couple of times I laughed out loud! There is something so endearing about a self-deprecating narrator. All of your details paint a picture of this story's setting. Great job with world building!

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Hello, there! Long time no see!
I'm happy you've read it! and I am happy to know that it made you laugh :D

Great job with world building!

Thank you! ^_^

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"Now go kill my desk" has to be one of the best first lines I've read in ages. Great stuff. Keep it up.

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Now I understand what they mean about the power of the first lines.
I'm glad you liked it ^_^

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