This is the quietest that the floor at work gets.
There is a conspicuous hum of the air conditioning and faraway sounds of rustling papers and someone folding a plastic bag. There’s the occasional cough and sputter and muffled sound of someone on the phone.
It’s eerie yes, but also very calming. You have the printer to yourself. Granted that it may not necessarily work, but I’d rather deal with an angry printer than ten people jostling to use it. The sound of typing echoes a little and well I have always thought that it is a delightful sound, like stories being created or a tapestry being put together with wooden spindles. Very often, I shut my eyes and type, letting the sound fill me up to the brim.
There is no one else on the floor now. The people in the distance have left. When I crane my neck, I see rows and rows of empty desks, where their computers are still warm from being used all day.
The pantry feels squeaky clean, the smell of coffee replaced by the smell of medicinal flowers from the room freshener.
When I leave, the raw sound of my feet against the floor is magnified. It feels like a lot of people are clapping around me, cheering me on at the end of a long day.

There’s the underwater feeling.

Where I say things but it comes out all garbled. Where my head is swimming through all the conversations and the unanswered emails. My mind is asleep, all curled up under a thick blanket.

The floor at work is all dressed up and there are paper lanterns with shimmering tails. The tails tickle the heads of the tall variety of people. Everyone is chattering, in loud dramatic voices. I can hear them but I can’t comprehend too much. It’s like looking at the fogged mirror after a bath.

Atleast the week has ended. Small, but significant, mercies.

The week isn’t quite over.

The dread of a working Saturday starts to fill you up mid-week. It settles in the pit of your stomach like a bad meal and stays there until Saturday afternoon. Throw in a deadline and an early morning jog, and you’ll find yourself keeling over in bed on Friday night, and not from a hangover like the other normal people with Saturdays off.

On every Friday which precedes a working Saturday, the same thoughts cross my mind. I ask myself the same questions, run the same excuses through my head to try and get out of all the stuff I am supposed to do. It’s almost like it’s a biweekly event, where everyone here stands around with dull faces, whining like as if it’s never happened before, about this unfortunate event coming their way. It’s like a sore mass of despair lined with envy, a few hundred people’s envy all balled up in one dark cloud.

The Saturday comes and passes us by like any other day. It isn’t half bad given that people are busy making Sunday plans. The Working Saturday, like all impending doom, is never as worrying as the build-up to it.

It's like sitting inside a tin can. Everyone around me in this bus is making exasperated sounds.

There's a backpack on my lap and a paper bag propped between my feet. The people standing in the aisle are peeping into it.

Someone spilled coffee here. It's the slushy kind that could be mistaken for something you might find in a loo. A child is poking at the mess with the tip of his yellow shoe. Everyone first laughs then groans.

We waddle along, it's like being in a rocking chair, only not as comforting.

The shiny faces have been dulled by time and experience. The blinking lights from the fancy buildings at a distance now hurt the eye. The rain now fills me more with exasperation than with wonder. The singing birds and the dancing children can just aggravate the passers by. The ringing phone from perhaps a concerned parent or friend is followed by annoyed sighs. The time ahead looks unending and stressful.

Long days have glasses of their own too. Only instead of rose-tinted lenses, they have scratched out, poor quality lenses that make the world look frustrating and difficult.

Then there are days when you keep your head low and work all day and when you look up, the sun is setting and the sky is glowing with the dying light.

Long days are vaguely satisfying, because  although things don’t necessarily work out but you feel like if you’ve worked all day, something is bound to come out of it. The paper cup with my tea from earlier today has gone limp, the sides are soggy and a thin, unpleasant film has formed over the liquid. It sat there all day, while I typed away furiously or ran across the floor looking for print-outs or paper clips.

Right now, I have ten minutes before something else comes up and demands a thousand word report off me. There is an interesting rhythm  of the people around me shutting their things or locking drawers. There is an amusing enthusiasm at the thought of the day coming to an end. People are looking cheerful, making small talk about small things.

The outside world, atleast from where I can see it, is dark and fierce despite its determined glow. The street lights are beginning to come on and I can imagine the elevators beginning to get crowded with people attempting to put on their raincoats or find their umbrellas.

Then they will step out, while I try and look intelligent  in some meeting, with their fancy shoes splattering water on others like them.

A backwards tumbling auto with six people and a driver who whistled. We smelled of sweat and mud and wet grass. The auto took us away from the spider webs and yellow crabs and muddy trails.

It was a long day; stomach cramps and treks means you're probably not going all the way to the top. I wished I had though.

We played with a dog and fed it Parle G biscuits. The dog wouldn't let you go when you tried leaving. It was the nicest of dogs and the nicest of moments.

If you close your eyes and want to relive the day, well then, you know it's a day well spent.

The days when my thoughts are colourless.

And what is there to say?

That you shouldn’t start sentences with ands and buts.

That some days you feel unnaturally warm despite central air conditioning.

That if you don’t clip your toenails in time, they cut through your skin like blunt knives.

That some days you realize that you made a mistake and now you have to grow up and face the repercussions.

That if you wear denim on monsoon days, sometimes it smells of seaweed.

That some things aren’t up to you and the sooner one realizes that, the better.

That you cannot take people for granted.

That curly hair throws more tantrums than a child at a toy shop.

And what is left to say?

Some times Tuesdays feel like Mondays and that isn’t ever a good thing.

Extremely long day and hence the short post.
Tomorrow there will be two.
Happy Saturday to you too.

Disconnected

My cell phone didn’t ring or beep today.
Atleast it didn’t ring or beep for the reasons I’d have liked it to.
It’s not the last day of the week for me; tomorrow is a working Saturday. I don’t think you have an idea how much of a mood dampener that is.
In the elevator on Fridays like these, people look horribly morose. The one extra day is like a ton of bricks weighing them down. There is no cheerful banter or small talk. Only uneasy silence.
Some days aren’t good or bad. They aren’t even mediocre. They’re just a bunch of nothing. They haven’t gone well but they haven’t failed you. There is not much you can do about it. I don’t like to find hidden meaning in these days. Everything doesn’t have to be a life lesson.
I cannot wait to leave, get home and crawl into bed. On such days, I am happiest when I am asleep.

Very long day and hence the very short post. I'll make it up to myself by writing two posts tomorrow.
I bought my laptop today. Made my very long day worth it.