It's all Over.

The first one Martin Kempt noticed was the one in the middle. The one with the straw-dry salt and pepper hair, crinkled back behind his ears - part of a panel of three who would be interviewing Mr. Kempt – who had his attention directed downward to a small stack of papers which he shuffled with such deliberation as to look affected.

Martin, already laminated in perspiration under the strain of the impending interview, now gushed. His clothes became thick and soggy and moved strangely against his skin, and -- dare he believe it -- already expressed an odor of the body. Please Lord, he thought to himself, whatever else don't let him recognize me. The two of them had history; an incident which Martin until now thought might have been left justly and fully behind. God's nasty humor to bring them back together; and if it came to be that the man with his beatnik hair, once looking up from his papers, recognized Martin, the job was as good as gone. It was unfair, thought Martin. How could he resume his regular job after such a failure – what would Monday morning be like? What would he tell Joan?

There were two other panelists, each with shorter and darker hair. One wore glasses and gave of the whiff of a nerd (ill fitting features, sport jacket too large, drinking a cherry coke, etc...) whilst the other was an almost entirely forgettable thirty-odd; cleanly cut, sharply dressed. He was the first to rise and greet Martin, and he did so with widespread and welcoming Jesus arms, 'please have a seat, are you thirsty?'.

'No thank you,' Martin just about squawked. Looking toward or away from the man in the middle, it felt intensely conspicuous. It was agonizing. Until the man looked up, looked him in the face, there would be no way of knowing if the entire thing was doomed. He considered simply bolting from the room, flying down the stairwell, vaulting the turnstiles and disappearing into the anonymity of the city. It was only manners, he supposed, which prevented this.

Martin set his briefcase down beside the open chair and took his seat. He tried to ease himself back discretely in case he was starting to smell. As anybody knows, the best intentions turn to the worst when the rising must of a sweating body mixes with cologne. It creates an oddly sour effervescence; and he worried it was starting to happen here. But his shoe, on attempting the maneuver, slipped off the carpet, and instead his knee just flicked up and into the opposite side of the table generating an resonant thunk. A single, enriched tear borne of excruciating pain welled in Martin's eye as the man in the middle finally looked up and took him into his singular attention.

'Ok,' he said, 'welcome in. My name is Donny Frink – call me Don – I'm the associate director here and will be the hiring manager for the position. Guys' he said gesturing either side of him, 'if you'd like to introduce yourselves to Mr. Kempt.' His tone was perfunctory, weary. Better; bored.

The other men introduced themselves, but the names ran right through Martin who had slipped into a near comatose state of relief. He wanted to weep and could scarcely introduce himself in return. Don did not recognize him at all, and they could now get down to business.

Reborn and triumphant, Martin allowed their line of questioning to draw him into a rhythm. It was technical stuff. Arcane stuff. It was his stuff. He riffed on decision trees, forests and weaknesses in AI training methods. He asserted his experience in over-reliance on machine learning in matters of human relation. He was even able, at times, to correct the grammar of the panelist's questions and recommend a different frame of mind in which such questions could be formulated. Did it sound smug – no matter. He was flying.

All in all, the interview probably lasted about forty minutes, with five or ten minutes of banter at the end. 'And you know how we handle the difficult problems?' asks the panelist to the right, 'Kick them upstairs!' answers the panelist on the left. They all laugh.

'Oh I know all about that' says Martin. They all laugh again.

And with that the interview concluded. They exchanged hand shakes – even mentioned something in passing about availability to start – and expressed tentative 'see you later's. The dopey smile stapled to Martin's face was untrammeled. From all wrong, to all right. And finished. He'd performed, he could breathe. He knew exactly what he could tell Joan.

Then, in a moment slowed down by the God's unerring attention, Martin having let go of the remaining congenial hand bent to retrieve his case. Upon rising his eye caught Don's eye, and clocked it as Don's gaze traveled down toward Martin's case. There it lingered as some understanding slid into place behind the man's iris. Don's gaze traveled back up the length of Martin's arm, shoulder, neck and head to meet, soberly, his eyes once again. All he needed to know was now knitted into Don's gently furrowed brow.

'It isn't fair' thought Martin as he suffused with red, prickling heat 'It isn't fair, it isn't right'.

His knee – the same which had hit the desk – now banged into his chair as he hastened to remove himself from the ignominy of it all. Could he pretend and hope that it wasn't so? What else could he do. Maybe he was misreading. But this was delusion. This was self-soothing nonsense, and he knew it. Martin didn't look back as he tripped clumsily away from the desk. His face bright, the sweat back in torrents, mind on the nearest and most ready bar.

The panelists sat, contemplating the departure of their candidate. When the heel had disappeared from view, and the door at last swung shut to mark the end of things, a momentary silence fell.

Then Don snorted and said to his peers, 'I think that was the guy who farted in the elevator'.