One Friday Evening

“Man...still hitting your head on the laptop? Come on, buddy…it’s Friday evening!” a heavy but excited voice propelled some air into my ears.
I looked up and showed my sad face to Ravi.
“No Ravi…I can’t go! I need to complete this stuff and send the report by tonight. You guys carry on.” I made a statement with a tragic tone.
“Hey don’t be such a spoilsport! You know we all planned it together.”
Now I am surrounded by five angry faces and I saw one finger traversing towards the ‘Power off’ button of my laptop.
“Hey please don’t do that…I have those works unsaved...please!” a high-pitched scream came out of me.
Thud! My desk trembled with a heavy blow of a number of frustrated fists. With a dejected look, I saw them leaving.
8 PM. I was still struggling with the excel sheet. The population of our floor was getting drastically reduced as the hour hand of the office clock continued to move upwards. I maintained my gentle smile on the face whenever my work-space neighbors wished me a ‘Good Night’ followed by a more irritating ‘Happy Weekend’! I almost felt like the ever-smiling door-keeper of the restaurants, whose duty is to greet the customers all day long whenever they came out after a sumptuous breakfast, lunch or dinner.
Two more hours went by and my spread-sheet looked messier than ever. I made all the possible permutations and combinations of mistakes allowed by Microsoft so far on the report. Gmail kept reminding me about my well-wisher friends who were so eager to know what my plan was for tonight or what I would be doing in the weekend. My phone kept on ringing diligently. I never knew that I was so important and sought-after by so many people.
11:30 PM. I felt some creatures doing weight-training inside my stomach! I immediately looked at my wrist-watch. Gosh! I needed to rush towards the cafeteria; else I would have to extend my strong solidarity towards Mr. Anna Hazare tonight for sure. I almost ran towards the cafeteria and whoa! The office assistant declared with his signature grin, “Sorry sir…cafeteria is closed!” I managed to bring a sweet smile on my mask and shrugged with the absolute calmness, “No problem…I was just checking…thank you.”
My next stop was the Coffee shop. The good-looking attendant, with a mysterious eagerness, enquired, “Which coffee you want sir…mocha or latte?” I tried to pose like a casual passer-by who felt like having a coffee just like that! “Oh yeah…I will need one latte…by the way, do you have any sandwiches or puffs just to have now…I mean!” I thought I succeeded to hide my actual intention. The gentleman bombarded, “Extremely sorry, sir…all food stocks are over for today!”
I came back to my floor. No sooner had I swiped my card at the glass-door of our block than the smarty security personnel offered help. “Have you lost or left anything sir?” I felt the urge to provide some advisory tips to the gentleman but controlled myself. “No, actually…I am going back to work…” I answered without looking at him.

When I came back to my desk, to my utter surprise, it was dark! I shouted, “Hello…anybody there…can you please switch on the lights please?” I managed to grope and reach at my work-station, somehow but where was my laptop? The helpful security guard came and with his typical ‘May-I-help-you’ smile, informed me that he had already extended his helping hand towards me. He found my laptop unattended at my desk, collected it and handed over to the concerned department. I, immediately, ran towards the ITS department and when I reached there I found a print-out…just waiting to welcome me in front of the ITS room, ‘Next shift time starts at 6 am on Monday.’

“Oh yes…that’s a perfect plot!” I murmured. I was so desperate to complete the report and send it to my manager by today. He counted on me and I gave him a nice goosebump in return. The whole world conspired against me so that I could not deliver the report. Now my laptop is also gone and I could get it only on Monday. I looked up and cursed the invisible demon who planned it all.

“You smell that? Take a deep breath through the nose. Really let that seep in. What are you getting?.” Did I hear the demon speak? “I will kill you, Goddamnit!”, I screamed and planted a kick towards him as strong as I could.

“Ouchhhh…Uhhhh…you kicked me, idiot…take this !”, I felt like an earth-quake on my nose as I suddenly realized that I had just been slapped by a gentleman who was just sitting next seat and heard my girl-friend fuming, “That’s so disgusting ! I can’t believe you were sleeping all through the movie!”