The Application
By Kit Schluter
The object of my application was to gain access to a plane of language honest yet completely discursive. Like a procedural work, it was meant to provide me a strict framework to liberate me from my intuition and habits, gracefully stultifying the products of my free-range creativity with its stringent demands.
The application taught me of economy : I desired a new, terser voice. I filled it out, again and again, as nothing more than a literary exercise. As it restructured the interests and aims of my writing, and then my very manner of speech, I admired its austerity.
The application taught me English. It forced me, in fact, to learn English all over again. Its questions served as a model for the English I hoped eventually to speak.
But when they offered me a job, I knew I had done something wrong. I looked back and wished I could read the application for the first time again, repeatedly, one time after another, applying alive and in death, a virgin applicant filling out its form for the first time, forever, and ever. And when I heard myself say yes to their offer—O god, only now can I see the irrevocability of my mistake . . .
Don’t talk to me.
This would be easier were I made of glass.
The application taught me of economy : I desired a new, terser voice. I filled it out, again and again, as nothing more than a literary exercise. As it restructured the interests and aims of my writing, and then my very manner of speech, I admired its austerity.
The application taught me English. It forced me, in fact, to learn English all over again. Its questions served as a model for the English I hoped eventually to speak.
But when they offered me a job, I knew I had done something wrong. I looked back and wished I could read the application for the first time again, repeatedly, one time after another, applying alive and in death, a virgin applicant filling out its form for the first time, forever, and ever. And when I heard myself say yes to their offer—O god, only now can I see the irrevocability of my mistake . . .
Don’t talk to me.
This would be easier were I made of glass.
Copyright Credit: Kit Schluter, "The Application" from Pierrot’s Fingernails. Copyright © 2020 by Kit Schluter. Reprinted by permission of Canarium Books.
Source: Pierrot’s Fingernails (Canarium Books)