Last Night's Story

Monday happened.
Morning coffee rushed down my throat, my blue BMW X1 rushed me to office. I toyed with the iPhone in the backseat as Dharmender negotiated four-wheeled mindlessness. We passed the vast dusty fields, and massive concrete towers entered my view, for perhaps the thousandth time.

9.32 am: Hundreds of people were entering the many towers of India’s new-found middle-class prosperity. I smoothed my sleeve, and leapt out of the car, into their midst. Sharp-dressed men and beautiful women held my attention as we marched towards the elevators which would take us to our many offices, on some twenty-five different floors.

I stood in the elevator glancing at my watch, with last night’s half-written story still running in my head. We all glanced at our phones, and watches, and iPads, and shook our heads, and clicked our tongues. We were all late. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 14. 15... Once again, the silliness of not having a thirteenth floor registered on my mind, but I no longer found it funny – not after all these years. With a tinge of regret, I realized I could now recognize faces in the elevator, and possibly identify the companies for which they worked.

At each floor, short tempered people – high on caffeine – stumbled out of the elevator in a zombie-like trance, until at last, it was my turn. I took my mind off my protagonist, and focused on the world that surrounded me. I paced towards the swinging glass door and checked-in with my access key card.

“Good morning sir,” said the guard, standing up as I entered. The peons next to him rose from their seats as well.

As I approached my cabin, I was greeted with more smiles, and familiar ‘what’s up’s. I placed my laptop in the docking station, turned on the extended screen, called the cafeteria and drowned myself in coffee and emails. I answered a few calls, and expressed my displeasure at a report’s shoddy presentation.

I then picked up my diary and walked into my manager’s office. “Why are these sales figures dropping?” he asked me, pointing at an info-graphic. He was a heavily built man, whose life revolved around his job. In his worldview, his happiness was directly dependent on how content his manager was. By logical extension, he didn’t expect me to be happy unless he was satisfied. I wondered how the hero of my incomplete story would react in such a scenario.

There were a few more questions about meeting Q3 revenue targets and possible avenues to expand market-share. I had all the numbers at my fingertips, and threw them at him as soon as I knew where he was heading. The Q&A session resulted in nausea: as I exited the room, my head felt empty. I hadn’t felt this way since college, when I would load my brain with answers to questions which I knew would come up in tests, and flush my brain out completely during the exam, leaving nothing behind.

I went back to my cabin and took stock of everything. I thought of my origins and my rise through the ranks; I evaluated the coming years and looked at my seven figure Savings balance on Citi’s Internet Banking site. I then thought about the life which really awaited me. At that moment, last night’s story completed itself.

I needed to quit.

The nagging feeling had finally given itself dangerous form. I couldn't run away any more. This wasn't a random impulse; seven months of thought, debate and unresolved emotions had crystallized into an overpowering decision. There was, now, no turning back.

Opening the drawer, I pulled out the sheet I printed many weeks ago and scribbled my name on the dotted line.

I knocked on my manager's door again. He was just getting off the phone. "I'll call you later, darling," he was saying, as he took the phone off his ear.

"Have a seat," he told me.

"I'm not sure if this will come as a surprise to you," I said, taking a seat, "but I'd like to quit."

"What? Why?" he said, with his old, half-serious grin.

"I'm taking up writing. Much more seriously."

"You've written before, haven't you? Why quit when they can coexist?"

"I'm not doing it justice. What's the point of a spent man trying to pen two pages at ten p.m. every evening, and falling asleep over the keyboard? And spending the next day thinking about what he could've written, only for the same thing to repeat?"

"Think about the life ahead of you, man," he said. "Is the road not clear enough? Do you even understand what you're leaving behind?"

"I know what I'm leaving. But I think it's high time I complete last night's story."

"You are leaving mansions and power, and millions, for a career in penniless art. What's the ending of last night's story?"

"This," I said, and handed him the paper.

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