the applicant

by fred flynn

billy smith was on time for the most important event of his life, as were most of the other applicants. he was issued a small tablet and directed to a seat in the middle of the auditorium, which seated around fifty thousand applicants and quickly filled up. a person - who looked like a so-called “real” person, but might not have been, - came out on stage. greetings, the person announced in a voice which did not seem to require a microphone. as i am sure you all know, today is the defining moment of your existences, when you will be assigned your places in the great panorama of human society. each of you has been given a small tablet. i ask each of you to please take your personal i d card and tap it on the tablet, to turn the tablet on and to register yourself. the penalty for using a fake i d card, or one not properly belonging to you, is quite severe, as i am sure you know. there are attendants in the aisles if anyone needs any assistance. these attendants will be happy to assist you if for whatever reason you are incapable of writing on the tablet. all set? that was not too difficult, was it? now, we come to the important part. as you see, there are three spaces on the tablet to list three possible identities for you to be assigned. obviously, everybody can not be assigned everything they wish. for example, there are only two thousand openings for football players, one thousand for movie actors, twenty for the featured stars of those movies, about a hundred for trained deadly assassins, five for best selling novelists, ten for members of the royal family, ten for members of the great council, and one for council president. but there are twenty billion people in the world, with about two hundred million of you new applicants every year. your existences, waking and sleeping, have been tracked since birth. those of you who have even the slightest chance of achieving one of the more coveted slots, will have been made aware of it many times over. therefore we ask you to be realistic in stating your preferences. because, as you have been told all your lives, if you make an unrealistic selection that has no chance of success, you will be moved to the bottom of the application pool, where you will be lucky to be assigned such roles as protest mob extra, front step paper bag wine drinker, itinerant fruit picker, street corner raver, or homeless crackhead. one last time, i implore you to be realistic. there is nothing shameful about being a bus person, a rest room attendant, or a full time tv watcher. thank you. please make your choices. billy smith wasted no thought or time in writing in his three choices. they were: 1. quarterback for the moscow marauders 2. trained deadly assassin 3. movie star most of the persons in attendance made their choices with the same alacrity. it took billy about ten minutes to hand in his tablet, exit the auditorium, and disappear into the night.