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I awoke in the dark room of my closed eyes. Birds chirped and trilled from every direction, as if perched on an invisible dome. My back pressed flat against the bed of grass, and a cool breeze brushed the soles of my feet. Against me lay another warm body, its chest rising and falling against mine, its breath heating my neck. I allowed myself to marvel at this for a few seconds before prickling with the reminder that I needed to find a job or I wouldn’t have enough to cover the rent.

The fingers resting on my shoulder curled, digging between the bony ridges. I opened my eyes and tilted my head as the woman lifted hers. Her pale-blue eyes met mine as if instead of sleeping, she had merely stretched a blink.

What could I possibly want from life except to wake to the gaze of this woman looking back? I needed to comb every strand of her honey-blonde hair with my fingers, glide my fingertips over the taut skin of her abdomen, feel her breasts yield and mold to my palms, bury my face in her neck or armpits and inhale the scent of a lagoon. Every passing minute brought me closer to the moment when I’d need to hold her in my arms, like a dolphin must surface or drown.

But I forced myself to sit up. The flattened grass sprang back and tickled my lower back. The woman wrapped a hand around my nape.

“Stay.”

“I wish I could.”

“What would you rather do?”

“Rather? Nothing. But I need to find a job.”

“Do you love it that much?”

Was she being sarcastic? Did she really not understand?

“Yes, I adore having a job steal my time, my thoughts, my energy, all so my bosses can sell someone else a product they’d survive without. It chokes me, playing a role I must uphold every moment, lest the master holding my leash drop me at the pound.”

“Then why do it?”

I tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear and traced the outline of the white blotch on her cheekbone.

“Maybe you don’t understand money, but out there you need it to exist. Plus, people find it natural to be handed a purpose. It saves them from thinking. Here, when you want to, you dive, talk to trees, lie in the grass. No one’s forced a society on you, and that’s one of the things I find most mesmerizing about you. You’re free from the worst humans have invented. But I belong to that outside world. To secure a good life, I’d need either stratospheric talent or the ability to ruthlessly manipulate others into handing over cash. I lack both. I must obey someone who’ll slip money into my bank account each month. And I’m glad you’re making that face. Glad you don’t get it.”

Leaving this forest felt like tearing metal from an industrial magnet. On the train back to my apartment, I yearned to jump off at the next stop and board one returning to Hitachi. Entering my apartment, sometimes after days away, felt like stepping into a summer home. I wandered the rooms suspecting the furniture had been rearranged, that someone had claimed the place and would brand me an intruder.

I compiled job listings from the internet. I sent my résumé even to postings that would reject me unless I lied during the interview. Each application meant leaping the same hurdle: I needed the money but loathed the routine it would condemn me to. Nerves. Cramps. Terror daily at finishing tasks on time, unsure if I could. I’d dread the next pit I’d stumble into, and to prepare myself, fueled by hair-pulling stress and coffee, I’d sacrifice some of my spare hours to research. The rest of my time would be reserved for rest, ensuring I was alert for incoming workloads. I would dream I was working, and after waking up at six, I’d drag myself to the job. I’d choke my thoughts and reactions to avoid appearing dispensable to the boss. Whenever an office drone included me in small talk, I’d spit out scripted lines, betraying my silence, and wonder if they saw through me. When I entered common areas, conversations would die. One day, a colleague I’d never spoken to might blurt their opinion of me. Corner plant. Zombie. Daily, my genetic intuition, the kind even citizens of a totalitarian regime feel, would needle me: We exist for a better fate.

So many hours and dignity sacrificed to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach. But what alternative was there? Live under the sky, eat rocks? Each passing minute edged me closer to needing another meal or drink—the unending struggle to exist that organic life had committed to, a struggle I’d signed up for through the unconscious decision to be born. A hollow existence stripped of color, that kept me busy to prevent me from questioning whether it was worth living.

At night, lying in my apartment bed, my mind churned. The woman’s absence ached like an amputated limb, but closing my eyes summoned her burning presence beside me. Though I needed sleep to stay focused on job hunting, she commandeered every checkpoint in my mind, deciding which thoughts passed and which jammed. Dozens of her details cycled, each flooding my veins like heroin. Her face, pupils dilating in the center of those pale-blue irises. Her flute-like voice pouring into my ears. Her honey-blonde mane shimmering under cloudy light. Her naked body, pale pink mottled with white patches. The dip of her abdomen between pelvic curves. Her breasts and neck trembling with spasms, lips parted and damp, bridged by a thread of saliva.

How did she hijack my thoughts until my life became a magnifying glass focused on her? I craved to chart every inch of her skin with my fingertips, map every discoloration. What would she think if she knew? She’d recoil. Yet I’d have installed cameras and mics in the clearing to capture every second, refusing to let those moments vanish into time and memory like a library torched.

Though one company called, they’d confused me with another interviewee they meant to reject. Of twenty applications, one led to an interview. I laundered a white shirt, black trousers, and a tie. That morning, I sat on a plastic chair outside an office door. A secretary would peer out and call my name eventually. Around me, men and one woman in monochrome outfits stared ahead like statues, or fiddled with phones. I avoided tapping the floor or shifting posture like a sleepless wreck hours into the night. Behind walls: muffled keystrokes, creaking chairs, voices cordially faking that enthusiasm tethered them to this office instead of their salary. But none of my rival applicants’ faces hinted they resented the poor script they performed like under penalty of breaching a contract.

If some lapse in judgement got me hired over these humans, I’d reenact the grueling routine: rising at six, trudging home drained at seven-thirty in the evening, fearing my mask might slip and reveal my disdain for having to obey in exchange for crumbs, disgust at forced small talk with strangers when talking wore me down. How would I balance that grind with the life I craved—secluding myself in the forest, grafting my skin to hers, forgetting that I had ever known the outside world? I’d lack energy to sustain both lives. The downfall from the time I had discovered the clearing until I lost my job proved it. I’d repeat that ending with new actors, or abandon the clearing and her.

I scratched a palm. One of my shoes tapped linoleum. Two expressionless men across the aisle watched me. I cleared my throat and leaned back. My pulse throbbed in my neck.

I wanted to slap every applicant. They waited to enter the office and kneel. Please, future boss, pay me enough to commute here and back, keep a roof, eat, and prop up the economy so the ruling party stays in power. Let me serve society. Assign me a purpose. Bury me in tasks to save me from thinking.

Had I become this? Someone terrorized by what moved and mattered, who agreed to neuter those feelings for shelter? I’d avoid anything that might spark new meanings, lest I question my enslavement. But at least I’d have a roof under which to age into a rotten shell, locked doors barring my inner self.

I closed my eyes. In my mind, I reached out to feel her skin against my fingertips. Of all humans I’d met, only she deserved to belong to the species. Daily she unveiled spectrums of light that life had hidden. If my future excluded her, why live?

I heard echoes of my name as if they had slipped into a dream. Through the ajar door, the secretary was peering out while holding my résumé. On its upper left corner, my photograph stared straight ahead with a cowlike expression.

I rose and followed her, stiff-legged. Inside, the secretary retreated to an adjacent room. Behind the desk sat a rugby-sized man in a suit and tie. His hair obeyed his comb’s orders. When he spoke and gestured to the chair, his teeth gleamed unnaturally white—nights spent with whitening strips.

I sank into the chair, head level with his chest. He scanned my résumé with a pen. Though he spoke, my brain refused to retain his questions, or my answers. Waves of unease coursed through me, threatening to erupt into nausea. Sweat trickled down my spine, pooled on my face, stung my eyes.

The man locked eyes with me, his mallet-like fist planted on the desk. Time to sell him the lie that I dreamed of laboring here, surrendering my life.

“I need someone to pay me enough monthly to cover food and the rent of my burrow. In exchange, I’ll do the bare minimum. The rest of the time I’ll pretend to work while resenting every hour wasted in the office—time better spent staring at my living room walls.”

The man shifted. Glanced away, scratched an ear. Took his time unknotting his frown.

“I don’t share your sense of humor.”

“I’m serious. Whether I work decides if I keep my apartment.”

The man drummed his knuckles and hunched over the desk. His eyes darted toward the typing noises next door.

“You have the wrong attitude for this office. Or any office.”

“You’re right.”

He shook his head, then shoved his chair back and pressed a button on his desk intercom. His voice hardened.

“Are you waiting to laugh and point at a hidden camera?”

“That would’ve been funny.”

The secretary peered out from the adjacent room. At her boss’ military-coded gesture, she opened the door and called the next applicant. The man fixed me with a squinted glare.

“You’re pulling stunts like this without an audience. I recommend you add a note about your mental health to the résumé. It’d speed things up. Now, out of my sight.”

I left the building like I’d just had an infected appendix removed. I had endured those humiliations for the last time.

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Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los reinos de brea.

Today’s song is “Mistaken for Strangers” by The National.