The Nervous Chairs

It was the regular afternoon. Just instead of my ergonomic office chair I was sitting on a simple and normal, yet a comfortable chair. There were three other chairs beside me and a fifth chair a bit far from the equally spaced four chair. And as shown in movies, these chairs were lying in the long corridor. Though there was a bit weird rule to be followed. Every person had to sit on every chair and as he sat on the fifth and the last chair, he disappeared after a quarter of an hour. Beside the numbering of the chairs, the only thing different among them was their level of nervousness, as people move towards the fifth chair, they keep on becoming more and more nervous and ultimately they disappeared. 

On that fifth chair was a healthy lady, who was tapping her legs at a constant rate. About five feet away from her, there were four another chairs. On the fourth one, there was a person who would have just completed his boyhood. He was turning pages of his notebook at a rate such that, I bet he was not able to read a single line of any of the pages, still he was doing that. As he completed his one of the notebook, he put it in his bag, and took out a similar but definitely a different notebook, and repeated the process. Next to him was a girl. Frankly speaking, my heart skipped a beat when I first saw her. She was beautiful. She kept looking down, possibly thinking something or trying to remembering the knowledge of her lifetime. She looked at me and I looked away from her. Next to her, and me as well, there was a man who looked like a twenty-five years old to me but on conversing he revealed that he was thirty-four. He had a long beard without a moustache and his totally round cap and round spectacles portrayed him to be a knowledgeable person. Next to him was a boy, who had his heart racing, not because of the girl next to next of him but because of the butterflies in his stomach that proved that he was excited to face a new challenge. Yes, that boy was me.

Wait a minute. Where is the healthy lady? The lady had disappeared and it was time for every person to move to the next chair. The boy in his early manhood moved to the fifth chair. The French cut beard on his face was fine, but his face itself could not justify the style of his beard. Beside issues with his face and beard combination, he was now turning the pages at the lightning speed, and moving his legs such that he was shivering. The beautiful girl, though she had a black mark below her eyes, which was definitely not due to kohl or an eyeliner, kept looking out of the window. Her hairs moved away with the air-flow hiding some part of her face. She kept looking outside the window and sometimes to the fifth chair as well as the person sitting on it. She was holding both her hands tightly, rubbing them against one another.

The man with the confusing age, now took out a file and turned every part of it nicely, exact opposite the way the boy turned his pages. Now I was on the second chair leaving mine for some other person. The butterflies in my stomach might have extended their family by multiple number of times, and I felt a rise in my anxiety level. I have been through this earlier. Not the chair part, but the anxiety level part. The trick to tackle this situation is to redirect our excitement in such a way that helps you win. I knew that I need to find a quite spot, and vividly imagine all my past successes and achievements. Physiologically, our brain does not knows the difference between a real or imagined experience. So visualizing success will improve the odds of improving your anxiety level as well. I went to the washroom, washed my face and came back.

And found that there was an empty chair beside as that of mine. This means that the French bearded man cum boy had disappeared and the beautiful girl was on the fifth chair. She was like super nervous and I just wanted to wish her luck only if we glance at each other at same time. The man beside me continued turning the pages in his file. It was a file containing his academic records. He started conversation with me regarding the awesome city, and we talked a lot of stuff, when suddenly I realized that the beautiful girl has disappeared.

It was the time to move to the next chair. I and the man with disputed age wished each other luck and he went to the fifth chair. I was on the fourth chair, and I took out my file, checked my academic and other achievement certificates and prepared myself for the fifth chair. Then I heard a bell, and a lean and thin came boy came out with a list from the door in front of that fifth chair and called the man with long beard in. It was my turn to get into that fifth chair. I went on to that chair.

The door in front of me had a label “Panel 2"
And it was like fifteen minutes to my interview.