I am making my way through the Monday, in an auto that tilts to the right on a road that looks like a smoke bomb exploded there.

The smoke I am told is to ward off mosquitoes. The auto tumbles along, and all the pests within in possibly die. On the cement divider between the street, the surviving pests of the human variety, create a racket with fireworks. The anticipated festival is more than a week away but that doesn't really hold anyone back.

The reds and greens of the signal lights blink at us, and watch us not follow a single traffic rule.

The Monday has taken me apart.

It has thrown at me tasks that I was meant to do many days ago, but got buried under other tasks. Like the monster that it’s meant to me, it has blindsided me in meetings with questions that I didn’t expect. In the quiet lunch hour, I stayed back to finish work that suddenly is far more frightful than it seemed last week while I procrastinated. The table is cowering under a laptop that feels like it’s burning up and tottering piles of documents that appear to be conspiring to kill me or atleast pounce on me the next chance they get.

It isn’t ending, this Monday. It’s just stretching into the evening, oblivious to tired minds and pleading faces. The five days ahead, and I have no idea where they’ll take me, seem like a time so long that it’s hard to imagine the other side.

After you discount the drama, what remains is still pretty scary.

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 breaks, both from reality and the writing, come with consequences. Two little blog-posts for the next two days, then.

There’s Chinese food bubbling inside me. It’s like I ate embers from a dying fire. The heat rises and falls periodically. Earlier today, when I woke up – I wish I didn’t have to. Everything seemed bleaker. Everything felt like it was covered with a dark, thick blanket. I don’t really recollect what I told myself to encourage myself to get out of bed, but I did.

Now, even though I am sitting at my work desk, looking atleast mildly intelligent, my brain is still swimming through dregs of grease from last night. Two long weeks are ahead of us and unfortunately there isn’t too much to look forward to.

Yes, it’s Monday morning. I don’t think I should be expected to be cheerful atop everything else.

Doom. Impending doom.

It's filling up spaces around me. And quicker than you can imagine. In the mornings, it presses down on me. It smothers me like a TV show murderer. In the nights, it lies down next to me and slowly begins to jab fingers into my back as I try and sleep.

It follows me around like a jilted lover and when I scream, noiselessly, on trains or elevators, it looks shocked that I have such a negative reaction.

In bus queues and cafeterias, it presents me with people I'd rather not meet. People with plans. People who have no idea for whose team they're batting, but they play well anyway. Because, you know, just in case.

My doom is a contradiction. It's shapeless yet concrete and inadvertent yet direct.
On empty days, it sits on my back - like that dreaded monkey.