And instantly he looked to his screen, avoiding any eye
contact. Funny thing was there was nothing but a blank page shining at 50%
brightness. He lowered it to a considerable amount. Now he enjoyed the subtle
off-whiteish view. He paired it with
his headphones and opened a tab in his Google Chrome. On YouTube he played a
Gorillaz album and beat the table with his fingers to express his admiration.
He tried to sneak in a glance, just to check if things were cool again.
She was still staring.
He slowly panned his vision from left to right trying to
signify the need to find someone. He then took the headphone off, got up,
extending his act and walked to a certain somebody. He leaned to his bay
barrier and said.
‘Kya chal raha hai?’
‘Kuch nahi yaar. Wohi **** kaam.’
‘Bhai sab bakwaas hai yahan…’
‘Shaam ko kya kar raha hai?’
‘Kuch nahi. Bata?’
‘Chal scene banate hain.’
He strolled to the cafeteria and fixed himself a cup of
coffee. Holding the cup he looked outside the window at the calm winter afternoon.
He took sips and smiled. He walked back blithely looking here and there giving
waves and handshakes to the people in between, neglecting a portion of a person’s
leg that came his way. The leg with the person shifted quite frantically to a
position to the right. And to make it worse, little of his coffee fell on little of
her shoes.
‘I’m so sorry.’
There came no response. Just the stare. He brought some napkins
and placed it on the desk in front of her. But all he got back was the blank
stare.
He sheepishly walked back to his desk and sat in his cocoon.
From the side of his eyes he saw her shift back to her original position.
Unknowingly as the eyes met again, he saw the horrific stare. He had seriously
pushed it too far. He realised that he would always be that careless hooligan
person for her. If ever, on some project they were destined to work, he would
have the hardest time starting the conversation. I’m sorry for that day actually. I did not see you and you know…
He tried to divert his attention to the screen on which he
had to write this manuscript. Due to this most recent advancement, he found it
difficult to concentrate on the project at hand. He drank the last bit of
coffee and threw the cup violently in the bin.
In the process, he managed to have another look at her. She
no more stared at him but stared still at the shining bright screen in front of
her. It seemed to him as if she was generally lost and this sort of calmed him
in some way. He took a sigh and got ready to write. Just then his extension
rang.
‘Could you come here for a moment please?’
He stepped into his boss’s cubicle and greeted him. ‘Yes boss!’
‘Listen there’s this brief we’ve printed out in braille.
Could you please give it to that girl over there? She’s our new writer.’
Quite shaken, he walked
with the paper and placed it between her fingers.
As he got back to his desk, the writer smiled to have
finally arrived at the plot of his manuscript.
*
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