The Applicant

    

The sunny days were always the most enjoyable ones for the Applicant. The cheery blue skies were a welcoming guest to the endless view, and the golden rays of sun prickled his skin in the same way as walking through a field of tall grass. It was a pleasure to him that the vantage points provided in Cliffside City only took a step outside his home to see, for the whole city was built on tiny pillars of earth jetting out of a perpetual, bottomless abyss. The only structures the Applicant could see for miles were the other pillars of earth holding shopping districts and cottage homes like his—built on the pillars of Cliffside for the exotic view. Green and yellow far way specks littered the skies— flying and twirling from each lone pillar toward the commercial centers and factory-like structures ahead. Dozens of them flew along the skies, filling the airspace like migrating birds.

The Applicant tipped his vibrant red hat upward and fastened his black tie. His red jacket blew like a cape in the loose breeze as he walked toward the cliff. When on the edge of the plateaued pillar of earth, he released a metal triangle roofed with green fabric from his loose grasp and onto the lively green grass beside him. A metal bar handle—similar to the U-shaped handle of a shopping cart—snapped into position and stuck out of the bottom of the fabric once it hit the grassy floor. He grabbed the rigid metal-framed triangle of cloth by its newly popped-out handle and took a step back away from the edge. Preceding two quick steps, he jumped from the plateaued pillar into the vast, chromatic sky.

The Applicant's triangular, roofed frame fought against the air as he fell. He angled his cloth triangle to a weak decline and peered toward a red-roofed, glass-walled building on a pillar barely visible in the outskirts of the open sky. The building displayed specialized blue and white gliders on the pavement surrounding it and had cardboard boxes lining much of its exterior—which was frequently picked up by red-coated and red-hatted civilians. These civilians would grab the boxes and fasten them atop one of the black and blue gliders and fly toward housing pillars in the distance.

As the Applicant soared like a bird toward the red-roofed structure, he checked his watch and then yanked a crumpled and vaguely-torn sticky note—tainted with blue, horizontal lines—out from his pocket. He recognized the list engraved in lead on the yellow paper from writing it yesterday; it recorded the names of a couple of boxed-food. He sharply steered his glider away from the red building surrounded in cardboard boxes and towards a small, right-angled wooden building dug into the side of a low-lying plateau of risen earth. The Applicant landed on its small, wooden porch and dropped his glider onto the creaky, wooden-planked floor below, letting a faded, percussion-instrument sound free into the airspace around him. He dully gazed toward the homelike, smooth-wood structure that had wide glass display-windows and emitted comforting candlelight which tended for his cold, goose-bumped skin. He approached its see-through door and grabbed the cold, metal handle. He rattled his wallet out of his pocket as he walked through.

He meandered fluently through the aisles of the welcoming, wooden building with the precision of a robot. He reached the cashier's bulky wooden desk in an instant and quickly exited the wooden store with an abundance of cardboard-boxed goods with expiry dates decades in the future. He placed them in a small, woven picnic basket as he grabbed his glider from the splintered wooden porch. He pulled a white string out from his pocket and tied the basket to the top of his glider. After taking two steps back, he jumped off the wooden porch into the pillar-filled sky, with glider above him.

He angled himself once again toward the red, cardboard-box-surrounded structure with his goods sitting atop his glider. His destination was roughly level with the cottage-like store behind him, but instead of going in a straight line he angled his glider downward for the extra speed. The Applicant wrenched the crumpled sticky note out of his pocket and re-scanned the small piece of paper at a speed equal to reading a bedtime story. His ink-splattered pupils gazed back and forth as he moved his head from one side of the paper to the other as slow as a pendulum. However, they soon looped like a broken record on a block of text he didn't see earlier. He needed to buy ornaments and tinsel to decorate their vast, long halls for the incoming holiday. He opened his eyes wide as he quickly gazed at his watch and then back to the small, modernized wooden store. He twirled his gilder around to redirect his downward plunge toward the pillar of the store. Using the speed of his fall, he sharply pulled his roofed frame upward as if he is playing tug-o-war with the wind. He launched his glider upward toward the wooden store engraved inside an earthy pillar and within a second he leaned forward and made his landing on the splintered porch.

The red-coated Applicant dashed through the aisles and instantly blasted out of the doors of the store holding a basket full of shiny ornaments and tinsel. He jumped off the wooden porch—with glider in hand—and rocketed into the glider-filled sky. He leaned the rigid framework roofed with cloth in a downward quick-descent toward the red-roofed building. However, the Applicant's eyes fell to his pocket, and his face instantly grew pale. He reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out the crumpled piece of notepad paper, slowly uncrumpling it to see the whole thing clearly. There—written between the blue guidelines—was a new section. It was full of different types of present boxes—special ones with the capabilities of being placed atop gliders while full or be folded flat while empty. He frantically checked his watch and made a sharp, downward turn toward the wooden store. He pulled his glider upward toward the heavens above, launching him upward towards the store with the speed of a lightning bolt.

He landed and rolled into the wooden store. He ran as fast as a jet through the aisles to grab all of the foldable present boxes he could find. In an instant, he yanked the glass doors of the modernized cottage store open and jumped back into the air with dozens of folded boxes stacked atop his glider.

He veered downward like a falling needle to gain speed in his descent. He yanked his glider upward right as his nose touched the darkness of the abyss—breaking his vertical fall and launching his glider like a missile toward the red-roofed. The air bashed his helpless face as the second hand ticked on his watch. The speeding dagger cut through the air and was in a straight line upward toward the red building. The Applicant strengthened his arms and got ready to yank the glider downward to almost crash land his glider onto the top of the plateau-pillar. However—out of nowhere—a glider soared in front of him.

He crashed into the oblivious civilian—whose eyes widened the second they looked towards him. The glider was ripped from the grasp of the civilian, and they were batted like a lifeless ragdoll into the pillared cliff down below. The Applicant spiralled uncontrollably upward and scraped his sleeveless arms and formal clothing against the concrete of the plateau. After a minute of being dazed on the ground, he heard the rising sound of a siren whaling. He squinted through the sunny haze to see men in all black vests and trousers drop down from night-coloured gliders above.

The crowd of shadowy figures—armed with clunky, cylinder spear cannons—approached him and the front-line man with red and blue strobe lights strapped to his vest gave a bold command that echoed through the skies, "Put your hands in the air! By Protocol 1513, you're under arrest!"

The Applicant, bleeding and drowsy, held his hands up into the sun-ray-filled sky. The black-vested men surrounded him in a circle. The front-liner drew forward and placed handcuffs around his flimsy hands as he stated, "You will be taken to jail until we can get a trail for you. I won't be surprised if no lawyer will want to assist you after that reckless stunt you performed".

They dragged him toward one of their black, mono-coloured gliders and chained him to its handle. As the glider he was chained to started to take flight, he gazed solemnly at the other monotone gliders in the distance, angling downward toward the bottom of the cliff. He dangled helplessly from his chain as the men soared into the sky.

He was taken to a building atop a pedestal of earth—rising upward out of the endless abyss below. It had grey exterior walls and white pillars held up its flat, concrete roof. They turned him through hallway after hallway as he kept his weakly head down, gazing at the stone-tiled floor. They threw him into a dim-lighten cell with water cracking through the walls in one corner and with mouldy vines creeping down the wall in the other.

As the men exited the view of the cell bars, the Applicant sat down on a small, wooden bench that spanned from one wall to the other. He carefully pulled out the small, crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. He looked at it grimly and then checked his watch; its second hand two ticks before nine. He smiled after checking off each thing off his list with a dull pen, one by one. The list was complete. The applicant took off his red coat and removed its golden name tag. He held it up against the barred window while the red-roofed building sat in the distance behind. The name tag glimmered like glass as the word Applicant disappeared and turned into the word, "Employee".