At office...one night

IT WAS my first job. It was my first experience of being occupied full time and so I ventured forth into it with complete devotion and enthusiasm. Which is why, I did not mind when I had to sit late hours completing work…sometimes at the behest of my senior but mostly of my own accord.

A writer’s job is a tough task and not at all glamourous as it is made out to be. It involves long, painful hours of carefully weaving stories with words and spinning dreams and narrations on paper…sometimes days of mental blocks and more often than not, insipid reams and reams of paper filled with uninspiring and boring babble.

A young novice in a large newspaper has her task cut out for her and I was no exception. But ask anyone who is in this profession and they will tell you that every single minute of toil and turmoil is worth the peanuts most writers get paid.

It’s nothing new at this time and age but some ten years ago, sitting past seven in the office was far from fashionable. In fact, though the youngsters of this generation may find it hard to believe, but sometimes at seven in the evening, I found myself by myself alone in the office with no one else for company except the dodgy, old watchman who would be smoking at his weedy beedi to ward of the perils of his boring job.

I was given the task of editing particularly tedious copy for an equally tedious astrology software and with time, I began to suspect that that I was hired mainly to clean up dots and dashes rather than for my exemplary (or so I thought) writing skills. But nevertheless, it was something interesting that I had to do and so as mentioned earlier, for the want of anything better to do, I decided to take it up with gusto.

The occurrences began sometime around the second month into my job. After saying goodbye to a particularly talkative colleague, I sighed with relief and prepared myself to complete the last of the editing task. Left alone, I could accomplish the last in less than a few hours and I couldn’t but wait to see the end of this project.

Now here, let me explain to you my seating arrangement. We had two big halls next to each other. The editorial team sat by one side and the marketing team sat on the next. There was a small passageway which connected the two teams which was about seven feet long and three feet wide. This is where I sat. Or perhaps, this was where the newbie were required to sit where we would get pushed around every time one person had to move from one department to the next. And since we couldn’t really complain, we had to live with it.

Both departments would be fairly lit up way into the night. On the evening I have mentioned earlier, I was deeply into deleting some particularly large sentences of copy that didn’t make any sense to me when I felt a slight tap on my shoulder. I turned around, irritated by the disturbance. There was no one there. I went back to my work thinking nothing of it. After a while, I felt someone standing by my side. I turned around thinking it was Guddu, the chaiwalla who had come with my regular supply of tea. But yet again, there was no one. I walked up to the marketing department and looked around. Save for a few marketing execs who were as deeply into their work as me, there was no one else. I didn’t think much of it even then.

I thought it was merely my imagination or perhaps I had been doing too much work and the words on the computer screen had perhaps begun to take a hold of my senses. I decided to give it a rest and shut down the computer to make my way home.

The next day was a copy of the previous one save for the events of late evening which were to happen later. It was at the exact same time that I found myself staring at the last parts of my project and this time, it once again began with someone tapping on my back. Perhaps it was due to the fact that I had seen a spooky movie last night or this time I was really conscious of myself, I froze in my seat, scared and unable to move my head.

I don’t know why but momentarily, I turned off my computer screen, just in time to see a man peering into the empty monitor from behind me. It was clearly the face of an elderly man with kind features who seemed to come and vanish into the empty, shiny black computer screen. As an instant reaction, I put on my computer screen to make the vision disappear. I turned around expecting to see nothing and I was right. There was nothing there…or no one. Was it for real? Or was I dreaming? I couldn’t decide and so I continued to do my work, though with my mind a bit shaky and my scepticism shattered for a bit.
It must have been eight in the night when I was still at my work and the last instance happened just then. It was a crash which took made me totally jump out of my seat.

I ran to investigate and it was an old column of books which had come crashing down near the office library. With my hands shaking and lumbering, I dialled the extension for the night watchman but there was no reply. That was it. I picked up my jacket and bag and ran out the entrance.

Only when I was way out of the building, could I breathe again. I didn’t look back. I took a cab to the station and tried to put the incident out of my mind but mind you, it wasn’t a peaceful night at all.

I reached home but mentioned none of this to my parents since I didn’t want them getting unnecessarily worried. Moreover I had to start the day early next morning so it was imperative that I get a good night’s sleep.
As soon as I reached the office, next morning, something was amiss. There was a police van outside the building accompanied with a forensic team and what have you.

By and by an ambulance came by and in went a few medical attendants and came out with the night watchman who seemed to be grievously injured. He was incoherently babbling while they drove him away. It was well into two hours later that we came to know what happened.

Sometime around the earlier evening, a young marketing exec got fired from his job for not meeting his sales targets. It seems that he was battling depression for a very long time and this incident just threw him completely overboard. Armed with a couple of very sharp knife, this man entered the empty office building after hours, sometime around the same time that I was writing the last of my project.

This man, he entered the marketing department and went around slashing everything in sight including the phone lines…which explains why I couldn’t reach the security last night. While he was at it, he bumped into the column of books which fell to the ground. And while he was on his way out, he managed to have a go at the poor watchman who was busy with his beedi.

As I heard what happened, I began to get goose bumps. I was so close…this close to being a victim of this man’s violence. If…if it had not been for that vision, I would probably be in a body bag right now.

But yet, then, there were things that couldn’t be explained. Like…what was it that had saved me? Was it a guardian angel, or was it a spirit passing by who kept giving me signals? Or was it merely my imagination? It left me completely perplexed and I said nothing to no one.
I got the answers a few days later.

I was given the task of re-arranging the office archives when I found the same face looking back at me. It was in an old office photo album. There was no mistaking it. They were the same eyes, with the same moustache and same smile.

And the man in the picture was one of the founding members of the newspaper…one of those guys who were never talked about even during his days and even after he was gone. He was not a flamboyant t journalist nor was he a media baron. He was one of the silent pillars of the organization when they needed him the most…and best of all, he was one of those guys who took quiet care of the people who worked for him…even long after he was gone.