Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Library Gothic

minutia-r:

deepdarkwaters:

spacesorbet:

crescentwrenches:

peachsss:

rosequartzery:

• “Do you have that book?” a patron asks. You reply, “I’m sorry, could you be more specific?” “The book,” is the only answer you get. This happens with three more patrons today. “I’m sorry,” you say to them all, “I don’t know what book you’re talking about.” The book. The book. The Book. Should you know The Book? Should you have The Book?
  
• An elderly couple comes in every morning for the newspaper. Nobody remembers a time that they didn’t. They have always been elderly. There’s a faint foul smell in the library when they’re in.
  
• There is a branch on the system map that you’ve never heard anyone talk about. You’ve never seen books with their branch sticker come in and you’ve never sent books to them. You asked a co-worker about it once, but they just smiled and asked how much shelf reading you got done that day. You tried to find it once, but kept finding yourself in the same grocery store parking lot over and over.
  
• You weed for hours. There are no fewer books on the shelves. You weed for days. There is still no room for the new books that have come in. You weed for months. You feel like you’ve withdrawn a lot of these books already. You know you threw this stained, tattered, moldy copy of Bleak House in recycling a while ago. You weed for years. You weed forever.
  
• (You never weed books on witchcraft. In fact, you put ten brand new ones on the shelf yesterday. They have already disappeared.)
  
• One day the elderly couple doesn’t come in. The library has a much fouler smell that usual during the time they’re regularly in.
  
• You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a copy of Ramona Quimby, Age 8. You loved that book as a child, and it looks like the same edition. You open it to check the publishing date and there is your name and childhood phone number written in purple crayola marker in your 8-year-old self’s handwriting. You did not grow up around here. Your family is not close.
  
• You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a book with a photo used as a bookmark. You take it out to let the patron know they left it in there next time they come in. The photo is of a child at the beach and you would swear that it was a picture of you, but you have no memory of that swimsuit and no memory of that beach. The patron does not return.
  
• You go through a box of donations and at the very bottom you find a book written in a language you can’t identify. You pass it around to your coworkers, and none of them know either. You upload a picture of the cover to reverse google image search and there are no matches. You open the book to double check for copyright information and you don’t know how you missed it until now but there is your your name and childhood phone number written in purple crayola marker in your 8-year-old self’s handwriting.
  
• “Do you have that book?” a patron asks. You reply, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what book you’re talking about,” even though this time you get the nagging feeling that you do.
  

This is terrifying I love it

WHAT THE FUCK

@editorincreeps

I’m going to need this to be a horror film please and thank you.

@worldsentwined

Millennial Job Search Gothic

realityshmality:

deducecanoe:

tortillapunx:

• you have an interview next week. you always have an interview next week. The managers who interview you all seem to share the same pleasant, blank face. They promise to call you back in a few days. They never do.
  
• they say the minimum wage is going up soon. 
• you must have two years of experience. you must have five years of experience. you must have ten years of experience. experience in what, exactly? the job requirements bleed into an ancient latin text as you attempt to decipher them. 
• the people in the photos in the craigslist ads smile eerily at you. their eyes seem to follow you around the room even after you click away from the job posting.
• do not apply in person, the posting says. do not send in your resume. do not apply. we’ve lost too many employees to the creature as is.
• you plan on leaving your job soon. you’ve been planning on leaving your job soon for months. you keep making excuses as to why you haven’t left your job yet, but you know deep down that even if you put in your two weeks tomorrow, you wouldn’t leave the company as the same person you were when you applied. if they let you leave alive at all.
• you seem to see “help wanted” signs everywhere. when you enter and inquire about them, the employees wave you away. you hear their cries for help again as you leave.
• you are more than qualified for the job that you are applying to. you are over-qualified for the job you are applying to.
• you do not get the job.

Oh god.

• You begin interviewing the interviewer. You know everything about the company, the position, and the person across from you. You don’t like them very much. So you start to train them. Now they know better. They still do not hire you.
• A third person comes into the room, you’ve been sweating in your chair for over two hours now. You don’t know why you’ve had three identical conversations with nonidentical people. Maybe it’s a test? Is this the comprehension portion? You always aced those tests.
• The personality test says you’re a level 35, and you’re glad. You didn’t feel like a level 17, and no one ever hires level 2 personalities. You add the results with all the other tests in the filing cabinet you can no longer close. The papers that spill out have line after line of your personality traits as if they’ve unraveled your genetic code. You need to fit into the personality group of the company.
• You wake up from a fugue state surrounded by writing samples, clutching your chest, heart hammering. It’s four in the morning.
  
• You wonder if 401K is the name of the ghost down the hall. You catch them from the corner of your eye, but you’re never really sure if they are actually there.
• A question is asked by one person, but it echoes, a multitude of voices saying the same things, over one and the other. You have been here before. You feel cold. 
• Tell me about a problem you had and how you solved it?
  
• I am stuck in a loop. Everything is the same. I wake up, I eat, and go to this interview, and then I go again. Every time, the same questions are asked and I can’t stop them. Nothing stops. You just don’t remember me, but I’ve been here before. I remember it all. Everything.
  
• You tell them about the time you solved a problem using customer service skills.
  
• They tell you there’s plenty of jobs out there, They do, Them. You just have to look, so you pick those up. Find some jobs, NO NOT THOSE ONES, THOSE AREN’T REAL JOBS. GO GET A REAL JOB You’re scared. Why are They mad? What did you do? You worry if your job is REAL. Are you real?
  

(via cthulhu-with-a-fez)