I didn't want the job, but I needed a job, so there I was, interviewing for the job.
     "And you are?" they asked me. They were sitting at a desk. The desk was stacked high with papers, presumably resumes, presumably including mine.
     I told them who I was.
     "Right, right," they said, and nodded, like they had been expecting me to say that.  "Of course." They shuffled through some papers, grabbed one from the top. "Aha," they said, then gave me a look I wasn't sure how to read. "Here we go." They read from the paper, all the while mumbling "yes" and "right" and "mm-hmm." After a few moments, they looked up from the paper and said, "So, could you tell us a little bit more about your decision to leave the company?"
     "Well, actually I'm here to —" I began.
     "No need to be shy about it," they interrupted. "Just come out and say it."
     "Well, the thing is —"
     "The thing is that you are unhappy here, correct?" They were looking at me from above the rims of their glasses. They offered me conspiratorial smiles. "Deeply and profoundly unhappy. Come on, don't be frightened. Speak up. You can say it now."
     "Well."
     "After all," they continued, "what good is an exit interview if it isn't honest? Not much, right?"
     I agreed that it wouldn't do much good to lie.
     "Now we're getting somewhere," they said. "Now we're really getting somewhere." They made a show of placing the paper face down on the desk, as if to indicate that we were now speaking privately, off the record. "So, let's get right to it. Can we fairly assume that this has something to do with Frank? Is that a fair assumption for us to make?"
     "Well —"
     "Because, let us tell you something, if we had a dime for every person who has come into this office and sat in that chair" —here, they pointed to me, to the chair I was sitting in — "and said, 'I've about had it up to here with Frank! I quit!' well, let's just say we'd have a lot of dimes." They laughed. They adjusted the papers on the desk, many of which I could now see were blank.  "Or," they said, then held up a finger, "Or, is it less a matter of Frank, and more a matter of workload? Because that's something else we get all the time, too. 'Sure, Frank is a total nightmare,' folks will say, 'but maybe if the workload wasn't so overbearing, I guess I could maybe deal with Frank.'"
     "Hmm," I said.
     "Hmm?" they said. "What does 'hmm' mean?"
     "Well, I guess it means —"
     "It means that you'd much prefer it if we'd stop beating around the bush with all of this Frank and workload nonsense, and just come out and ask it. Is that right?" They cleared their throats. They made dramatic neck rolls. They cracked their knuckles. "Fine. Here goes: is this really about the vermin situation?"
     "Well —"
     "Because, believe us, that's not something we're just going to come out and volunteer, is it? Why would we? What would we stand to gain if the first words out of our mouth were 'vermin situation'?"
     "Nothing?" I offered.
     "Nothing!" they said. "That's one hundred percent the case here: nothing."
     Here they made a show of shuffling through some more papers, many of which fluttered to the ground. One landed at my feet. It was the most elaborate drawing of an avocado I'd ever seen. Its skin was dappled with exotic light. The avocado glittered and shone.
     "Aha!" they said, and slammed a piece of paper in front of me. "Does this look familiar?"
     It was a terrible, childish crayon drawing of an avocado, this one bearing a lopsided smiley face.
     "It's a...bad avocado?" I said.
     "It's a happy avocado!" they said, and tore the drawing to shreds. "God!" They tore the shreds into smaller shreds. "Would it absolutely kill you to say happy avocado? Or is saying happy avocado something that's simply beyond your capacity?"
     "Happy avocado," I said.
     "Don't say it if you don't mean it," they sneered. "Don't patronize us." They took the shreds and rolled them into little balls, and then tucked the little shreds inside their shirt pockets, carefully, as if for safekeeping. "We know when we've been talked down to, don't we?"
     I didn't know what to say to that. I could see sweat beading upon their foreheads. I could see their shirts sticking to their chests. I began to feel a little sorry for them. "Listen," I said, "I think this has all been a big misunderstanding."
     "Big misunderstanding?" they said.
     "I mean, about the interview."
     "Go on," they said. I could see them beginning to smile, just barely.
     "Well," I said, "the thing is —"
     "Yes?" they said. They gave me a hopeful, expectant look.
     "The thing is," I said, "this whole thing is really about the Rita fiasco."
     Their smiles widened. "The Rita fiasco? Aha. We thought you'd never mention it." They rubbed their hands together. Their teeth gleamed. "Anything else?"
     "You bet there's something else," I said. "How about the way Corey has been acting lately? Or what's been happening with the green felt? Or Mr. Ditterhorn's habit? Don't tell me you didn't think I wasn't going to mention Mr. Ditterhorn's habit."
     By this time, I could fairly see tears of joy forming at the corner of their eyes. But I had so much more to say, about Abigail's prophecies, about the customer service aura, about the idiotic hangnail policy, about why no one ever wanted to talk about the chameleon anymore.
     They rehired me on the spot. I'm in sales now. Low sixes.
  

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"Interview" is based on an actual event, where I was summoned to the HR department at the college where I currently teach to fill out some paperwork. When I arrived at the HR office, though, the HR representative invited me to have a seat, grabbed a file folder from the top of her desk, glanced inside, and said, "So could you tell me why you have decided to leave the College?" I said that I hadn't decided to leave the College; I was just here to fill out some paperwork. The representative asked, "Isn't this an exit interview?" I said not unless there was something she knew that I didn't. The representative said she was sorry, and began apologizing profusely for initiating an exit interview—she had gotten her files mixed up. I said it was no big deal, and we laughed about it.

That memory, combined with the dozens of job interviews I've had in the past, was the point of departure for "Interview." The rest is just me imagining how the narrator might react to the interview questions. I wanted the story to run a fever, especially toward the end, where the questions get pretty absurd. It isn't for me to say what the story means, or might mean, but I've always been fascinated by the subtext of job interviews, where the person who gets the job isn't necessarily the best candidate, but the one who can best parrot the employer's language, proving that they already talk the talk, so to speak. For some amazing absurdist stories, I highly recommend James Tate's The Ghost Soldiers and Sabrina Orah Mark's Wild Milk. Those are both incredible collections that run beautiful fevers.