(originally published in French in www.lezebre.info)

Don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on the edge of this chair, staring at tile grout. I consider a dragon’s neck, curling around a broken column. My wrists got stuck to the oilcloth, suddenly I nod at the smell of coffee. I still forgot to switch off the gas stove. Since I have nothing left to think about, I feel too empty to remind the least still needed. Last Friday, I forgot to go to the workshop organized by the National Employment Agency, for which I answered yes, like you buy ugly clothes to get rid of the shitty seller. Few days later, I recieved a notification stating I was temporarly radiated, like if in August, decrease of unemployment rate was just me.

I know well the crackings on my ceiling, the ones nobody ever sees. I spend time to arrange my already tidy closets and when I am congratualted for the interior fittings, I exagerate my fascination for Good Housekeeping.

Actually, days are 76 hours long. As I leave children at school during lunch-time, to avoid their interrogative sight on my working agenda, I have time to test all colors from B&Q on the walls. My home, where I loved to hide on days the world was hostile, closed me up like a carnivorous plant. I now live like prisonner, gliding from a room to the other.

My smartphone is waiting for its ten thousands daily steps, while I am looking for a reason to stand up. Unresponsive face to Gray’s Anatomy, the heroïn is not that pretty. I won’t cavort door-to-door to find a boss. I could go for a walk except you don’t go for a walk on mondays. I could eat my canning, but for sure not before noon. While other people are working, I should enjoy being free, do things, take advantage.

That’s what people say but it’s not so easy to take advantage of a hollow, a sort of space-time hole abolishing your social existence. So I wait, curled up on my fat knees. I wait for a call offering a job interview, I wait for an email to archive an application, I wait for an promising offer I could apply for. Over all, I am waiting for commonplace of everyday life dedicated to domestic tasks. I prefer sneaking through the crowd of parents who left the weekly meeting despite the reproving sight of their chief. At last, I comme back as everybody else, boiling water for pasta, waiting for tomorrow, when I cling to the collective norm of time division. When I was employed, I was waiting for week-ends as a breath of fresh air, the possibilityto linger at the pub or in my pyjamas. Jobless, there is nothing in common, Friday is an opportunity to get out from my guilty position. If I manage to avoid the question from a friend of a friend on what I am doing in life, I might have a rest up to Monday.

And sometimes, there is an offer for a job. So I click on the icon of the search engine to apply on line « a Job is looking for you on Jobijoba ». As the email adress logged in is never the good one, the password is always wrong, the Linkedin account associated is misfunctionning… I remain quite sceptical about their ability to find me. I don’t remember how it started. I contributed to the redundancy of my supervisor, my division was about to be dismantled and I couldn’t imagine to get a wage for no work for weeks. I got an agreement to leave and everything should have go well. On my size, I have had years of well known experience, and from then, a Master degree with mention as intellectual medical bulletin. And naturally came the job interviews, where I have to say sorry, for my difficulties to ramble on my ability to do what I have alreavy proven I know how. Sat on the edge of the chair, facing the desk, I look I am about to go away. I stare at the CEO who manages to stand up thank to his tie with geometric pattern. On my own, I wear my Britney Spear’s blouse, I possibly look half floozy, half staright-A Student… I understand I should have followed compliance lessons. He is stroking the angle of the sheet where my CV dies, with the top of his chubby fingers, while I don’t know where I could hide my hands. Nothing compared with those who don’t know where to hide their whole body.

Atlantide Merlat