Life is indeed happening
Tyler Durden is sitting on top of me with the gun barrel lodged in my mouth, deep enough that I can feel it’s rasp in my esophagus. I am on the 94th floor of some building and I have no idea how I got there. It’s dark and quiet, sometimes an all-familiar ring tone breaking all the silence.
Tyler said, “15 seconds is all you got to live. This is the foundation, look at what we’ve accomplished so far. 10 seconds (checking his watch)”. I make an effort to push him but he knocks me down. “You did a fine job. Now you can hang up your boots.” In an unpleasantly low voice, “5 seconds”. I had no idea what he was talking about. All I knew was that in 5 seconds, I’d be dead. It ain’t fun to die young as Guns N' Roses said. I felt really helpless and started the countdown of my life in despair.
4…3…2…1…BANG!!!
A long silence and the all-familiar ring tone continued to ring. I was relieved to know that I’m not dead yet. My ears, my eyes seemed to be intact. All soaked in blood, I stretched my arms to reach the cell phone. “ID Withheld” is what is displayed. I tried to take the call but the ringing would never stop. I felt so weak and helpless that I began to scream.
Whenever I am in deep shit, I wished it were a dream. And sometimes, such wishes do come true. Yes, that was an awful dream I had this morning. More often than not, dreams have some logic to relate with but this had none. I kept pondering until I could recall that it was 4:00 am when I checked the time last. I was watching fight club for the 3rd time and Tyler Durden was Brad Pitt’s character in the movie. So when did I sleep? No idea.
The cell phone started to ring again with the all-familiar ringtone. It was my buddy. “Dude! I called you a million times. It's 6:55, are we going to go jogging?” Having slept very late and after this dreadful dream, I was in no mood to even get out of the bed. I started giving all sort of excuses and finally, he had to give in.
As usual, I thought of starting the day with a long black coffee only to realize later that there is no water in the house. The landlord was on vacation and by no means could I get the water tank filled. My Room was in a total mess with beer bottles, newspapers, DVDs and electric wires all over the place. I had tons of laundry to do. It took me a while to dig up my tracksuit from the pile of clothes on my shelf and I decided to go to my buddy's place for a shower.
It was about 9:45 when we reached the office. Just in good time to grab some food from the cafeteria before the regular team meeting started. The entire team was there in the cafeteria as we walked in. A series of handshakes, good mornings with some out of the blue hi’s and hellos, making me believe that life is very happening and all. No dispute, it is indeed happening sometimes, like today. But I still have no clue of what’s in store for me. Taking it for granted like an average day, I quickly grabbed 2 bland idlis soaked in sambhar, just to quench my appetite and quickly rushed towards my desk to catch up with the day’s work.
After a speedy glance through my mailbox, I realized that there was a shit load of work to be pulled off before I could call it a day. Ain’t no cakewalk. I had just begun to plan my day when another friend asked me to accompany him for a coffee and smoke break. That was something I could never refuse. Not that I badly needed one, I just liked the interim break that usually ends up in a good discussion. Besides, when you know it’s going to be a long tiring day, such breaks are always welcome.
Finally, the day had started, and I was sitting in front of my screen, digging the keyboard, feeling tired and a bit sleepy. Having been on the project for nearly a year, I was one of the points of contact for a few people who had joined recently. Time went by, answering some of their queries and helping them out with their work, occasionally trying to fix my eyes on my screen to get some work done. In a little while, it was almost lunchtime and my colleagues called me to join them. With the bland idlis in the morning and an endless stream of coffee after that, I had no appetite to eat. I decided to stay back and have my lunch later. A couple of minutes passed, a message window popped up on my screen with “Happy New year” written on it. It was a school friend. “Jeez! This girl must be crazy. Why would someone wish me New Year, when it’s mid-August?” Before I could reply, she messaged back saying it’s “Chingam Onnu” meaning mallu New Year. I just couldn’t resist asking all my mallu friends if they knew it was the New Year. Most of them did, except a few like me. No big deal though. After all these futile conversations, I returned to my desk and gazed at the first bug of the day, which I was still trying to fix. I kept slogging for a couple of minutes more, checking if it was only me or there were more people absconding from work until I thought it was about time I had my lunch. It was already 3 and I rushed to the cafeteria to check if anything was left. Too late as always, the catering vendor was cleaning up the utensils when I reached there. I didn’t feel like having anything from the tuck shop and came back after yet another coffee.
I was still striving to motivate myself towards fixing the bug when a colleague, who apparently is new to the project, called me to answer some of her queries. The conversation went on for some time until I cracked a bad joke on her, which she clearly didn’t like. Well, it was nothing personal and I usually get away with such things. Her response was totally bizarre. Something that left me completely baffled for a couple of hours. She literally shouted at me straight off “there’s a limit to everything.” giving me a very angry look. She had clearly overreacted to the situation I thought. There was this abrupt silence in the team area with all eyes on me to see how I responded. Thank god, I didn’t do anything stupid there and just walked away asking her to take it easy. I know most of them had no idea of what had actually happened. They sure might have thought that I had misbehaved with the girl in some way. This thought was killing me.
I sat there at my desk, ostracized like a phoney slob, knocked down by a girl and in no state to do anything about it. Man, I really felt like a loser. That’s when one of my friends from college messaged me on yahoo asking “Howzit goin’ buddy?” I could do nothing but reply with the most popular suggestion at such a time... “f*#^ off”...
Of course, I explained the situation to him later. Good friends don't mind such things.
After all this, I badly needed a smoke to change the air in my head. I called my buddy, and another one also joined along. The smoking zone was unusually quiet. With not a single word uttered we all came back.
Coming back to my desk, I realized that the first bug of the day was still not fixed. I tried to act as if nothing had happened and quietly got on with my work. A couple of minutes passed, the reminder in my outlook popped up suggesting that I had a session to attend. It was a mandatory one and I had no option to skip. The session was interesting and I think it really helped me calm down a little bit. Back in my seat, that girl still kept asking doubts related to work and I tried to answer them all, with a very grim face and no goof up this time. It wasn’t very late when she came over again and apologized for whatever had happened. I tried not to pay any attention first and then later accepted her apology. I too apologized for having made fun of her in front of the team. The sorry episode continued for some time. It was evening already and most of the people had already left by now. But to me, the day had just begun.
After all this melodrama, I had started being conscious of the ticking time and the amount of work in hand. With pink floyd in the backdrop and a clear mind to carry out the work, In a cool, calm and collected air, I continued. Suddenly, Out of the blue, everything seemed to happen right. Like some divine intervention in those hindi movies. In a little more than an hour, I had completed almost everything planned for the day. This meant that I was good enough to call it a day. I quickly wrapped up all my stuff and rushed to the nearest restaurant to grab some food. Man, I hogged myself like there was no tomorrow. In another 15 minutes, I was home, lying on my bed, watching the ceiling, and analyzing the day. It was undeniably an eventful day. From a dreadful dream to a famished afternoon, being shouted at by a girl and the blissful feeling of completing the days work in good time and all this on a New Year day. Life is indeed happening sometimes.
Tyler said, “15 seconds is all you got to live. This is the foundation, look at what we’ve accomplished so far. 10 seconds (checking his watch)”. I make an effort to push him but he knocks me down. “You did a fine job. Now you can hang up your boots.” In an unpleasantly low voice, “5 seconds”. I had no idea what he was talking about. All I knew was that in 5 seconds, I’d be dead. It ain’t fun to die young as Guns N' Roses said. I felt really helpless and started the countdown of my life in despair.
4…3…2…1…BANG!!!
A long silence and the all-familiar ring tone continued to ring. I was relieved to know that I’m not dead yet. My ears, my eyes seemed to be intact. All soaked in blood, I stretched my arms to reach the cell phone. “ID Withheld” is what is displayed. I tried to take the call but the ringing would never stop. I felt so weak and helpless that I began to scream.
Whenever I am in deep shit, I wished it were a dream. And sometimes, such wishes do come true. Yes, that was an awful dream I had this morning. More often than not, dreams have some logic to relate with but this had none. I kept pondering until I could recall that it was 4:00 am when I checked the time last. I was watching fight club for the 3rd time and Tyler Durden was Brad Pitt’s character in the movie. So when did I sleep? No idea.
The cell phone started to ring again with the all-familiar ringtone. It was my buddy. “Dude! I called you a million times. It's 6:55, are we going to go jogging?” Having slept very late and after this dreadful dream, I was in no mood to even get out of the bed. I started giving all sort of excuses and finally, he had to give in.
As usual, I thought of starting the day with a long black coffee only to realize later that there is no water in the house. The landlord was on vacation and by no means could I get the water tank filled. My Room was in a total mess with beer bottles, newspapers, DVDs and electric wires all over the place. I had tons of laundry to do. It took me a while to dig up my tracksuit from the pile of clothes on my shelf and I decided to go to my buddy's place for a shower.
It was about 9:45 when we reached the office. Just in good time to grab some food from the cafeteria before the regular team meeting started. The entire team was there in the cafeteria as we walked in. A series of handshakes, good mornings with some out of the blue hi’s and hellos, making me believe that life is very happening and all. No dispute, it is indeed happening sometimes, like today. But I still have no clue of what’s in store for me. Taking it for granted like an average day, I quickly grabbed 2 bland idlis soaked in sambhar, just to quench my appetite and quickly rushed towards my desk to catch up with the day’s work.
After a speedy glance through my mailbox, I realized that there was a shit load of work to be pulled off before I could call it a day. Ain’t no cakewalk. I had just begun to plan my day when another friend asked me to accompany him for a coffee and smoke break. That was something I could never refuse. Not that I badly needed one, I just liked the interim break that usually ends up in a good discussion. Besides, when you know it’s going to be a long tiring day, such breaks are always welcome.
Finally, the day had started, and I was sitting in front of my screen, digging the keyboard, feeling tired and a bit sleepy. Having been on the project for nearly a year, I was one of the points of contact for a few people who had joined recently. Time went by, answering some of their queries and helping them out with their work, occasionally trying to fix my eyes on my screen to get some work done. In a little while, it was almost lunchtime and my colleagues called me to join them. With the bland idlis in the morning and an endless stream of coffee after that, I had no appetite to eat. I decided to stay back and have my lunch later. A couple of minutes passed, a message window popped up on my screen with “Happy New year” written on it. It was a school friend. “Jeez! This girl must be crazy. Why would someone wish me New Year, when it’s mid-August?” Before I could reply, she messaged back saying it’s “Chingam Onnu” meaning mallu New Year. I just couldn’t resist asking all my mallu friends if they knew it was the New Year. Most of them did, except a few like me. No big deal though. After all these futile conversations, I returned to my desk and gazed at the first bug of the day, which I was still trying to fix. I kept slogging for a couple of minutes more, checking if it was only me or there were more people absconding from work until I thought it was about time I had my lunch. It was already 3 and I rushed to the cafeteria to check if anything was left. Too late as always, the catering vendor was cleaning up the utensils when I reached there. I didn’t feel like having anything from the tuck shop and came back after yet another coffee.
I was still striving to motivate myself towards fixing the bug when a colleague, who apparently is new to the project, called me to answer some of her queries. The conversation went on for some time until I cracked a bad joke on her, which she clearly didn’t like. Well, it was nothing personal and I usually get away with such things. Her response was totally bizarre. Something that left me completely baffled for a couple of hours. She literally shouted at me straight off “there’s a limit to everything.” giving me a very angry look. She had clearly overreacted to the situation I thought. There was this abrupt silence in the team area with all eyes on me to see how I responded. Thank god, I didn’t do anything stupid there and just walked away asking her to take it easy. I know most of them had no idea of what had actually happened. They sure might have thought that I had misbehaved with the girl in some way. This thought was killing me.
I sat there at my desk, ostracized like a phoney slob, knocked down by a girl and in no state to do anything about it. Man, I really felt like a loser. That’s when one of my friends from college messaged me on yahoo asking “Howzit goin’ buddy?” I could do nothing but reply with the most popular suggestion at such a time... “f*#^ off”...
Of course, I explained the situation to him later. Good friends don't mind such things.
After all this, I badly needed a smoke to change the air in my head. I called my buddy, and another one also joined along. The smoking zone was unusually quiet. With not a single word uttered we all came back.
Coming back to my desk, I realized that the first bug of the day was still not fixed. I tried to act as if nothing had happened and quietly got on with my work. A couple of minutes passed, the reminder in my outlook popped up suggesting that I had a session to attend. It was a mandatory one and I had no option to skip. The session was interesting and I think it really helped me calm down a little bit. Back in my seat, that girl still kept asking doubts related to work and I tried to answer them all, with a very grim face and no goof up this time. It wasn’t very late when she came over again and apologized for whatever had happened. I tried not to pay any attention first and then later accepted her apology. I too apologized for having made fun of her in front of the team. The sorry episode continued for some time. It was evening already and most of the people had already left by now. But to me, the day had just begun.
After all this melodrama, I had started being conscious of the ticking time and the amount of work in hand. With pink floyd in the backdrop and a clear mind to carry out the work, In a cool, calm and collected air, I continued. Suddenly, Out of the blue, everything seemed to happen right. Like some divine intervention in those hindi movies. In a little more than an hour, I had completed almost everything planned for the day. This meant that I was good enough to call it a day. I quickly wrapped up all my stuff and rushed to the nearest restaurant to grab some food. Man, I hogged myself like there was no tomorrow. In another 15 minutes, I was home, lying on my bed, watching the ceiling, and analyzing the day. It was undeniably an eventful day. From a dreadful dream to a famished afternoon, being shouted at by a girl and the blissful feeling of completing the days work in good time and all this on a New Year day. Life is indeed happening sometimes.
posted by StrangeBrew at
7:21 AM
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