This morning I had an interview at MIT, for secretary of the "Music and Theatre Arts" Department. That's no joke, folks.
MIT's Music and Theatre Arts Department truly does exist. I know, because I was there and saw it with my own two eyes. Granted, if I had blinked, I would have missed it.
There were two parts to the interview: a rather Homeric trial followed by a brief series of useless questions.
The trial consisted of finding where the Music Department was located. If this seems easy to you, clearly, you don't know that MIT is actually a strange parallel universe where all of its denizens are bespectacled and don't wash their hair, and where the established laws of physics and spatiality no longer apply. After a good twenty minutes of stumbling through the labyrinthine back streets of Kendall Square in the damp, chewy October air and the poisonous mists of carbon monoxide emissions, I finally found myself inside a building whose facade looked like some over-zealous modernist architect threw up--a truly wondrous architectural monstrosity of twisted metal and weird, looming over Vasser Street without reference to sanity or Pa Kua. I do not know how much time passed in the bowels of this beast, because the irregular shape of the building seemed to have a deleterious effect on time and space within its walls. At length, it excreted me onto Mass Ave. (or at least what I believed to be Mass Ave. because that's where it is located in MY universe), where I continued to wander for days without food or water. Quite by chance, I turned down an alley between two buildings, where I had hoped to die peacefully, but after a quick map check I discovered that I was quite miraculously outside of the building adjacent to my destination.
Long story short, I eventually found the Music Department in a janitor's closet on the second floor of a building that could only be entered by opening all of my chakras and levitating. Simple.
The interview itself was nothing to sing about. Same questions you get on any interview. But I was struck by the view from the director's office: Outside was a large open green field, and beyond that, the Charles river. At that moment, I felt a lot like Alice looking through that teeny-tiny door into the Queen of Heart's courtyard. There it was just beyond the window, but by god, I couldn't tell you how to get to it without having to quantum leap.
Once it was over, I felt pretty good, like I had a good chance at getting the job. In the afterglow of a decent interview, I managed to take a wrong turn somewhere. I went from the soothing sounds of chamber orchestra and smooth jazz of the Music Department to the Abortion Wing in literally five paces. All of a sudden there were people in lab coats and babies in jars and large metal containers of flammable gases. It was surreal. But such is the alternate sphere of existence that is MIT.
As I tried to navigate my way out of the Abortion Wing, I suddenly remembered my last experience at MIT. What I was doing here at that time, I cannot say, but it somehow involved doll heads, flying machines, puppets, and a bath tub. It was a strange and distant, nearly forgotten experience, lingering just along the outer limits of my long term memory. It took a full minute to retrieve it, but retrieve it I did. Then, smiling to myself, I bid farewell to a man in a gas mask (who seemed quite surprised to see me) and made my way out and beyond the veil that keeps our worlds separate, and back to the comfortable familiarity of Mass Ave. and, further on, Central Square, where I enjoyed a pumpkin spice latte.
I really hope I get this job.
I <3 alternate realities.
