January 3rd - Post

Around a week ago, Sanjay was surprised to learn that he was already placed on the shortlist (there mustn’t be many applications, he thought). As soon as he passed a police check, he was to contact them again, provide the necessary paperwork and meet Paperfelt for a job interview.

It nagged at the back of his mind that he had to pay for the police check himself, but the reasoning given was that it indicated that the application was serious. That made some sense. At least there was to be a refund given during the job interview.

At 9:38am, Sanjay was standing at the Paperfelt office, one of many offices leased in a nondescript building of glass, checkered blinds and cool grey concrete. The office was on the fifth floor of the eight, at the end of a long hallway.  Inside was a small room with a smell of disinfectant and garlic. There was a makeshift reception desk, covered by a thick red blanket, with the overall look leaning more towards an amateur, homely look than the usual casual business décor.

After a moment spent wondering if this was the right place, he heard footsteps behind him. A young lady walked past him with black frizzled hair. She carried a silver metal box.

“This is for your interview,” the lady said, passing him the box. It was heavier than it looked.

“Do I open it now?” 

“No, wait until your interview. You’re here for the one at 9:45am?” Sanjay confirmed the time before the lady brought out a brown paper bag with ‘9:45’ scribbled in green ink.

“This is also for your interview. I’ve been told you are to study its contents before the interview and to bring it in with you like the box.”

“Okay…” Sanjay did his best to project confidence. “Is there someplace I can sit down?”

“Not here, unfortunately, but there are chairs back out in the hall. Have a good day.”

Sanjay sat down and opened the bag. He reached out and grabbed a strange ear of corn. It looked just like raw corn, except it was blood-red. He didn’t know what to make of it. Sanjay frowned as he looked at the different shades of red. Was this some kind of logic test? It didn’t look red dye or paint had been used. Well, unless someone had gone to the trouble of carefully doing each individual piece of corn, one after the one. What a strange thing to get for a job interview.
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The included event was this story from NPR (National Public Radio), an American source.
The exact story is from
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/01/02/574367086/from-hooch-to-haute-cuisine-a-nearly-extinct-bootleggers-corn-gets-a-second-shot

The story is an agricultural one covering the return of an unusual variety of corn.

I initially had some difficulty working this in and so didn't post on the Blogger site on the same day. I then came up with the idea of following the short story in real-time and so while still working on the story each day offline, I waited until the time I needed to pass in the story had passed in real-life before posting here again. I think that if I had been publishing this publically as a serial and/or if I was writing in the first-person that this would have a beneficial impact in terms of pacing and framing the story.

This is the first time that I feel I have truly gotten a grasp on this short story. I think during the editing process that I will trim a lot of the beginning and may start with this bit. I am also considering a change to the first person and only briefly explaining who Sanjay is (so as to still retain the reference to the first news story, which became the basis for the character of Sanjay).