The Expansion

The interview

The moment I received the company's e-mail, I was on the treadmill. I heard a notification sound. I took a glance at my tablet. No sooner had I seen the Noah's name, than I got stunned. The treadmill hurled me towards the wall. I bumped into the wall so hard that I couldn't move for thirty seconds. I managed to crawl towards the tablet. My eyes were locked on a sentence reading, “You are invited to take part in the interview on the specified time at our headquarters.” I had imagined this moment again and again and I supposed to shout out of delight when I received this news, but I just lay on the ground for thirty minutes with closed eyes. I didn't dare to think about favorable things since failure to achieve tham would disturb me for a long time.
I felt like calling everybody and giving them this piece of news, but, unfortunately, it was a piece of good news for me not others. Neither my family took pleasure from it nor did my friends understand me. I left my parents at 16. It didn't sit well with my father. Unlike my father, my mother came to learn that I would be more comfortable if I lived independently; thereafter, she wouldn't bother me. She suggested my father that he should free me up. If I told my father I wanted to go to Earth, he would hurt my feelings. He was always complaining about my failure to visit them frequently and give them help at this age.
I felt sorrow at the thought that there had been nobody next to me who could understand me, and I would be so happy if there was such a person to make friends with. I played a piece of upbeat music and celebrated my success in solitude. I wished I could make good friends in the days to come. The following morning I opened my eyes long before the clock went off and looked at the ceiling. I had lately developed a habit of waking up a few minutes before it went off. 
Whenever I was awakened by the sound of the alarm clock, I'd have a headache for some three hours, but it seemed that I had been a stronger person since the time I got used to waking up before it went off. My dreams were about to come true. First, I took a shower and and shaved up. I completed the beautiful morning with a leisurely breakfast. I was invited by the company and I believed it was a great day. I put on a black suit and a white shirt. It was the best and the most formal garment I could wear.
Having a vehicle was costly. Public transport was even too expensive, so people preferred to live somewhere close to the place they worked so that they wouldn't drive a car or take metro.
Thereafter, I was supposed to go to a place far way from my house, so far that it would be expensive to take metro. Therefore, I decided to go on foot and, if I felt I was short of time, take metro. I held my head high while I was striding along.
Everybody who passed me would notice my feeling and surprisingly glance at me. I would meet their glance kindly. I didn't know what they thought about me. I told myself: “How would I think about someone with this appearance? Perhaps I would consider him to be a happy-go-lucky guy, or I might think he has a date with a girl and is floating on air.” I made myself busy with these funny thoughts; after all, they could ease the covering of such a long distance. All of a sudden, a scene interrupted my thoughts.
A young woman pushing a baby carriage with one hand and holding her mobile with the other hand left an alley end entered a street. A car was heading towards her at speed. The position where I was standing let me see both of them properly. I came to realize that neither the woman had seen the incoming vehicle nor the motorist had seen the carriage!
I ran and shouted, “Madam!” “Madam!”
She was so deep in talking that she didn't hear my scream. I couldn't help jumping towards the carriage in order to push it to the opposite direction. The driver, who happened to see the carriage upon my jumping, slammed his foot on the brake, but the car hit me and I struck the ground on my hands and face.
I hurt my face. The women hugged her child while shedding tears. The child survived the crash. I saw people running towards me. I was not able to move. One person said, “I witnessed the crash from a distance. If not for this youth, the car would have hit the carriage. Madam! You owe your child's life to this boy.”
Someone came to me and said, “Are you OK sir?”
I looked in his eyes and blinked to show him I was OK, yet it was far from true. My body was warm, so I could not figure out what had happened to me.
Another person said, “Don't move him! A part of his body might have broken. The ambulance is on the way.”
“Broken?!”
“OH MY GOD!”
I remembered that I was on the way to the company.
“Shit!” I shouldn't have done myself an injury. I tried hard to stand up but people didn't let me to do so. I heard the wail of the ambulance siren and the the people who urged me not to move.
Two male paramedics approached me. One of them examined my eyes and ears with a medical pen torch. One of them asked, “My son, do feel pain?”
I replied, “My hands.”
I rubbed my palms against the asphalt surface. They were bloody and burning. My wrists were aching too. I hadn't ever broken any part of my body, so I didn't know how it like to have a broken bone. Therefore, I didn't know the pain in my wrist was a result of a fracture or another thing.
They carefully laid me on the stretcher and took me to the ambulance. My pants were torn and my knee was bleeding. The nurse tore my only pants with scissors and put dressing on my wound. I tried to move any single part of my body to learn whether they are broken. Except for my wrist, which hurt like hell, other parts didn't hurt.
I closed my eyes and kept alive the hope that I would go to the company and attend the interview with the next group a day later. To pacify myself, I told myself: “You saved a life and this was the most valuable thing you could have done and by the end of your life you can feel proud.” The thought of the company kept agitating me.
I saw the driver and the child's mother running towards me in the hospital. A man whom I didn’t know came to me. He said, “You're a great man.” “I owe you the life of my child,” he added. He went on to say, “Bearing a child caused us a lot of suffering, and we cannot imagine something happens to him.”
His words calmed me down. Little by little, I came to find the value of my deed. However, I might fail to pass the interview and become the same type of person again, but, in the eyes of some three people and me, I was a hero from then on.
My doctor came to the emergency and saw my medical report. He ordered them to take me to the CT scan room. I resigned myself to fate.
I was hospitalized at the ward after a CT scan was taken from my whole body. After a few minutes, the parents of the child appeared at the door with bouquets. The child's father was roughly 28 years old, and he was a well-mannered man. His appearance indicated that they were well-off. He put the flower into a vase by the window and said, “How is our hero?"
I replied, “I’m better.”
“Did you speak with the doctor?”
“No.”
“Before I came here, I asked the doctor about your condition. I’m a doctor too. I took a look at the results of tests and images. They suggest that you’re very strong. Anybody else would have been serious injured. No part of your body is broken, as far as I saw.”
I got happy when I heard that.
I replied, “I would be appreciate it If you tell them discharge me today.”
The doctor was caught with surprise. He said, “What? If you don't let your knee rest, you will suffer from the knee pain by the end of your life. Tell me anything you want and I will make it ready for you.”
I told him what had happened. He frowned and said, “I’m a surgeon and had performed many surgeries and saved many lives, but I confess that I have nothing to say compared with what you've done because I never put my life in danger, but you have volunteered to endanger your life to save thousands of lives.”
He added, “The strict hospital regulation doesn't allow me to do so unless we have the permission of a judicial authority for your discharge, and I swear to do everything to help you.”
At the same time, my parents arrived. My father complained a lot over my failure to take further care!
My friends arrived too. They changed the atmosphere by what they said. As they left, I was filled with heartache and sorrow though. Noah Company was a recurrent theme in the news. But I was nowhere to be seen.
I was not able to fall asleep. I put the blanket on my head so that the light coming from the hospital corridor does not bother me and I was really frustrated. After a few moments, I receive a message from the doctor,
“Are you awake Adam?”
“Yes, Doc.”
No sooner had I replied to the message, than the doctor made a phone call.
“The hospital principal spoke with one of those who have a responsibility at Noah Company on behalf of me, and he recounted the full story of you. This afternoon, some top officials of the company held a meeting on this issue, and, for your deed of valor, they decided when you get discharged the team should give you another chance for interview.
It was the best news I could receive and I felt no pain anymore. I sat on the edge of the bed until morning and thought how the interview session would go?
Upon getting up in the morning, I began to gather my stuff. As I opened the closet, I found I had nothing to wear. I remembered that after the accident my pants were torn up and I had no idea that where the nurse took my jacket and shirt. I wanted to call Thomas to ask him to bring a set of clothes. Among the guys, we were relatively the same size. At the same time, I heard someone saying, “Are you OK Adam?”
I turned to look who was standing at the door. Dr. Johnson's wife, whom I saved her child, was standing at the door. She was carrying a bunch of flowers and a wrapped box. She gave me the flowers and put the box on a table in front of the bed. “Johnson told me you'd be discharged today while we were dining yesterday, and I remembered your clothes were ripped up upon your acrobatic feats,” she said as she was unwrapping the box. She added, “Last night I had no time to buy a suit for you, so I called the shop where the doctor is always makes a purchase as I guessed you're almost twice the size of him, and ordered this for you.”
“Try it and if it is not your size I’ll ask them to bring the right size rapidly,” she said. “You'd better get ready because Johnson's carrying out your discharging process and we're giving you a ride to the company you've been invited to,” she added.
When I took the coat out of the box, I became speechless. It was a black suit but very different from the one I used to have. It was very stylish and when I saw the brand's name, I further became surprised. The brand's clothes were specially made for distinguished people. I once passed by the store and got stunned by what it offered for a long time.
I replied, "Mrs. Johnson! It is too expensive. I cannot accept it.”
She came forward and said, “What you did was so great that we have been considering making it up to you.” “Hurry up or you’ll be late,” she said.
I got dressed. It was great and perfectly sized. I couldn't buy something as stylish as it. I became a new person!
The doctor entered the room with some papers and said, “What nice guy! We didn’t know how handsome you'd been. Hurry up. Let's go. The interview will go underway half an hour later.”
I got into the car. As a hobby, once every few weeks, my friends and I went to the circuit and hired a car. Sometimes, each guy contributed a sum of money in order to hire a car for a day and we enjoyed ourselves. Johnson's car was a great one, and I wanted to know how much money a surgeon earns to drive a car like this everyday.
Sarah Johnson and and her husband were in the front and I was in the back. On the whole route, I was examining the car's option without being noticed. I didn't pay attention to the path until Johnson said, “Here is the place where you've been talking about all the time.” “Let see how it goes,” he said. "Give me a call in the evening and let me know how it works for you,” he added
I expressed my gratitude and left them behind.
I entered the building and introduced myself to a guy at the information desk. He stood up in respect and said, “You should go to the 12th floor, the room No. 1255, at the right end of the corridor.”
I tidied my clothes in front of the elevator mirrors. I coughed several times to get rid of hoarseness. I looked at my watch. The interview was about to start at twelve o'clock, and there were still two minutes to go.
I easily found the room 1255. I knocked at the door and entered. The scene I saw at the first glance was very similar to the one I had imagined for days. It was a large room with large walls and windows draped with white curtains. There was a large wooden table in the middle of the room. Five people were sitting at the table. Two people on the right side were roughly 40 years old and the other three were pretty old. Three meters ahead, there was an empty chair, which was obviously mine.
Two of the old men were very familiar. I might have seen them on the Internet or in books. I put pressure on my mind, but I couldn't remember them.
One of the young men said, “Mr. Adam, please sit down.”
Unlike my expectation, I wasn't anxious at all. I sat down gracefully and said, “I am so pleased to be here.”
One of the old men, who seemed to be pleased to hear my remark, smiled kindly, characteristic of the smile granddaughters gave to their grandchildren, and said, “We have studied your case and already familiarized with you. Our first question is ‘What is your motivation of going to Earth?’”
I tried to follow my heart rather than my head. I talked about my passion to make the trip, my physical exercises, my desire to continue my education in aerospace, and even my concern about the human survival and the calamity Venus was faced with. At the end, I concluded: “You know why I went to hospital. I managed to save the child's life. Although I did myself injury and, worst of all, I might have lost the chance to go to Earth, I experienced the best pleasure of the world and got more determined to travel to Earth. Certainly, the moment I give my life to save human life is more enjoyable than the moment I endangered my life to save an individual life.”
As my statement came to an end, the five guys began to clap. It embarrassed me a lot. For a person whose father had never told him "well done", the encouragement of the five scientists were unbelievable.
The kind old man who first smiled at me said: “On the handle of your chair, a device is embedded. It produces a signal displayed on the monitor in front of us. We measured your honesty based on the signals. You’ve been the best interviewee so far. In the last few days, we have interviewed many applicants. Our first question has been their goal to join the Noah family. What made them go on this no-return expedition? Their answers were really surprising. Some of them had experienced anything in their lives and they liked to experience it and then die. Some of them had family or marriage problems and they wanted to be so far from others that any chance for regretfulness would be thrown away and others would come to appreciate their presence. My son! We need motivated people for out expedition. When the issue of traveling to Earth is raised, nobody takes it seriously, but, as you know, not only is it a test, but also it can change the path of human destiny. It is likely that people in Venus will have less possibility for survival than the people who will go to Earth. Therefore they must be more motivated to stay alive than others. Unfortunately, few people’s point of view is the same as yours. We have examined your case. Your IQ score and general information were relatively good; your health and fitness were optimal too. At this stage, you can be a good option for a trip to Earth based on your self-sacrifice and your statements. I recommend you further look after your health from now on. We give you the chance to say goodbye to your family and loved ones, and finish all your incomplete tasks. Within 20 days, you should go the address we’ll send you by email. The company will satisfy all your needs, and you must not bring anything. I recommend you should forget about any attachment you might have. A picture or any other objects that are reminiscent of the past memories might negatively affect your decision or determination. As instructed by Dr. Noah, we liken any individuals due to be sent to Earth to the one who is going to die and not be able to take anything to another world or an infant who has already entered the new world. They shouldn't have any memory of the previous world. This trip is an investment for the generations to come. We have made any efforts to send the strongest and most intelligent individuals to Earth so that the generation who continues life out there does not have the problems we have in Venus. You're the first people to whom such an opportunity is given. Therefore, try to be a good role model for those who are going to follow in your footsteps.”