Filed under: Behind the screen..., craps ..., uuphh yeh life!!! — chapters @ 5:29 PM
My mind is completely blank… or is it full with all kinds of garbages!!!
Whatever the matter is, but I feel that I am completly hopeless and I dont have anything to write about 
Feeling like … Lost…
Filed under: Stories..., Very strange!! — chapters @ 9:50 PM
Finally, the team meeting got over. She came out of the conference hall after 2 hours and 10 minutes. Though it was her first day at the new office, but her work started from that very day. Firstly, she was introduced to all her team mates and then to the client of her project via teleconference. And after the conference, they had another meeting regarding the new project they are into. It was a hectic day for her.
It was 9.30 PM. And she needed to send some mails to the HR personnel of her company by that day only. So she sat at the system appointed to her and opened her mailbox. There were various mails for the day… some were from the HR, some were forwarded to all employees of the company and some were sent by her Project Manager attached with the project documents.
She was just going through the mails when someone patted her back. She turned around. It was Sinchita, one of her team mates.
“Hey, it is already late. Won’t you go back to home?? Where do you stay by the way??”, Sinchita said with a voice of concern.
“I stay in this sector only. I will have to send some mails to HR. That will take me some time.”, she said with a smile.
“Oh… If it will be over within 10 minutes, then I can drop you somewhere. My husband is coming to pick me up. He will be here by that time and you can come with us.”
“Thanks a lot…”, she said with gratitude, “But, I don’t think my work will be over by then. You don’t worry… I stay nearby only.”
“Okay, then be careful. Its already late and today being Friday, everybody has already left. If you need any kind of help, then this is my number… call me immediately.”, Sinchita took out her visiting card and gave it to her.
She took the card, “So sweet of you!!”
She watched as Sinchita went out and waved at her from behind the glass door. She waved back to her, kept the card carefully in her handbag and went back to her work.
Finally, after some one hour or so she was done with her work; she locked her system and stood up.
Sinchita was correct; the whole 6th floor was empty by that time. She was all alone. Suddenly she was frightened. She quickly gathered her things and started towards the door.
But she got more frightened when she realized that she did not have got the access card to open the door!!! Her mind went blank.
“What will I do now!!!”, she mumbled to herself.
She thought about making a call to the security guard below. But then it occurred to her that, being new, she did not even know the basic extension numbers of the office. She was trapped. Tears started to gather in her big dove like eyes.
Then she could remember the card Sinchita had given her. She looked into her purse and found the card. Then she dialed the cell number given in that card. But, it might be her bad luck that the phone was switched off. She was horrified. She dialed the number once again, but she was greeted by the same mechanical voice which informed her that the mobile was switched off.
She looked out of the glass door. The lifts were just in front of her, but outside the glass door. There were 2 lifts. From the digital display above the lift doors she could know that one of the doors was on the ground floor and the 2nd lift was on 20th floor.
“If only somebody comes up he/she can see me…”
Suddenly, the digital display of the second lift changed… 20… 19… 18…
She hoped that there would be some person who would be coming down and he/she would see her as the lift’s door was too made up of glass. She kept on gazing at the lift.
17… 16… 15…
“Oh God!! Please let there be somebody inside the lift and let that somebody see me…”
14… 13… 12…
Her heart beat was fast.
11… 10… 9…
She was almost glued to the glass door…
8… 7… 6…
And to her disbelief, the lift was empty. No body was there… Not even the lift-man. It went down without halting.
With the lift gone, gone were her hopes. This time the tears rolled down from her eyes. She turned around and looked into the office again. She could hear the silence. Her heart sank.
Suddenly there was a sound, “Ting tong”. She could remember this to be the sound of the lift when the doors get opened. She had enjoyed this sound in the morning when she had come to this building and boarded the lift to come up to 6th floor. And it sounded as if the lift stopped at the same floor where she was present.
She turned around. The lift had actually stopped at her floor. And someone was standing in the lift. He had a tag, similar to hers, hanging down from his neck.
“An employee of this company only…”, she waved to him and called him to open the door for her by gesturing by her hands. He came out of the lift… and swiped his access card in the card reader near the door. then he pulled open the door for her.
“Thanks a lot… if you had not come today then I would have died here with fear…. I was so nervous. I am new to this office and I don’t have the access card and there is no body else in this floor.”, she said at almost with one breath. Tears were still flowing down her cheeks.
“Hey… calm down… its okay. I just saw you while going down by this lift. You looked frightened. So I came up to see what the matter was…”, the man said in a friendly tone.
“You saw me??? You were in the lift??? But I did not see anybody in the lift… it was empty.”
“No, I was there. Otherwise how would have I known that you were trapped here. Most probably you could not see me… anyways, let’s go down then.”
“Strange!! I saw there was no body in the lift…”, she was confused.
“No Mam… I was there…”, he gave a smile to her and started towards the open lift door. She followed him and entered into the lift, watched him pressing the “G” button for ground floor. He looked at her and suddenly took out his handkerchief from his pocket and forwarded it towards her. She looked at him with astonishment…
“Wipe your tears… you are still crying. People, down there, will think that I had done something wrong with you and they will stone me to death… “, he laughed slightly while saying this.
“Oh…”, she blushed a little and took the hanky from him… then she carefully wiped her tears from her cheeks and eyes.
By the time she was done with the hanky, they had reached at the ground floor. She came out of the lift along with the man.
“Thanks…”, she said slowly and smiled at him while walking beside him. They crossed the security personnel. Three night guards were standing there. They looked at her suspiciously. She felt little awkward the way they looked at her. Once they were out of the building. He stretched out her hand towards her for a hand shake…
“By the way, I am Swapnil Sharma, and I sit at the top floor… 20th floor…”
“Okay…”, she shook his hand and smiled.
“So, what were you doing up there at this hour of the night?”, he asked as they walked towards the main road.
“Actually, today was my first day in this office. I had a lot of formalities with the HR to be done today. In the morning I did not get time and again next 2 days are weekend. If I had not done these things today then it would have taken me the whole Monday. So I stayed little longer. I did not know that people in this office leave so early…”
“Hmmm… actually today is Friday, so most of the people left early… anyways, where do you stay? Should I drop you by taxi??”
“No Thanks… I will go from here. I stay in this sector only. I will take a rickshaw from the main road”, she gave a gentle smile.
“Are you sure?? There won’t be any problem, right??”, he said in a tone of authority.
“Yeah sure…”, they crossed a small betel shop and the shopkeeper gave an eerie look towards her. She again felt little awkward.
They had reached at the main road. The road was almost empty; it seemed that this town slept little early on the eve of the weekend. She thanked him once again and crossed the road and went towards the rickshaw stand. There was one rickshaw and the owner of that rickshaw was looking at her. She went up to him and negotiated about the rent for taking her to her PG.
Once, the rent was decided she got onto the rickshaw. Suddenly she realized that she was still holding the handkerchief of Swapnil. She looked towards the other side of the road from where she had crossed the road. There was no one. She told the Rickshaw puller to stop for a while and got down. She looked everywhere but could not find him.
“Where could he go so soon!!! He was just standing there…Strainge!!!”, she thought to herself.
She got onto the rickshaw once again and it started moving.
It was twenty minutes past 11 O’ clock when she entered into her room.
“You are late dear… went for a date or what???”, Seema, her roommate, said with a smirk and put back the novel she was reading.
She gave back a smile to Seema, and sat on the bed.
“What??? Just a smile!!! Where had you been madam???”, Seema asked her once again.
“I will tell you everything…” and then she said Seema everything about that had happened.
“Wow!!! Was he handsome??”, Seema asked.
“Who?”
“That Swapnil Sharma!”.
“I am telling about what a big danger I was in and you are asking whether Swpanil was handsome or not!”, she took a long breathe.
“Look, be practical. You are at your room and you are safe. Now, be cool and think, what a romantic situation that was…”, Seema was over excited, “Heroine is trapped in a building… There is a loud entry of a handsome Hero and he saves her life. they fall in love with each other and…”
“Stop… nothing happened like that. He just got vanished the moment I got onto the rickshaw.”, She did not allow Seema to continue with her filmy story.
“So, you were looking for him…right…hmmm??? And you say, ‘Nothing happened like that’ !!!. I bet, you have got a soft corner for that Swapnil Sharma.”. There was a mischievous look in Seema’s eyes.
“I was looking for him as I had to return his hanky to him, but he was gone. It feels so strange… he was just standing there and when I turned back, there was no clue about him. Weird!!!”, she went back to her own thoughts.
“Hey, you have got his hanky? How romantic!!! Now you will get another chance to meet him just for the sake of returning his hanky. Then he will ask you out and then…”, Seema got back to forming her story without noticing the part, which her roommate had felt strange about.
She rolled up her eyes, “Should I suggest you something? Stop watching all those ‘good-for-nothing’ Hindi romantic movies.”
“Forget it!! Tell me, how does he look? Handsome or not?”, now Seema was behaving like a kid.
“OKAY”, she replied in a flat tone and went into the bathroom taking her night dress along with her.
The door got closed behind her and Seema could hear the sound of the shower. Seema walked till the bathroom and banged on the door & shouted, “Just an OKAY??? What do you mean by that ‘OKAY’?”.
But there was no answer. Seema got angry and came back to her bed and resumed her reading.
She came out of the bathroom with the nightdress on her and she looked fresh.
Seema looked at her, “SO?”.
“What so?”, she had forgotten what Seema was asking about.
“HOW DOES HE LOOK?”.
“Oh!! I said OKAY..”, she said this as she crawled onto her bed.
“What exactly do you mean by OKAY?”
“He was OKAY… that’s it!!”, She said with a smile.
“So that means, you like him??? Hmmm???”, Seema gave her a wink.
“Whatever!! Now please let me sleep.”. She switched off the bed lamp beside her.
“So, ‘Love’ has found its way into your heart”, Seema said with a dramatic voice and switched off her bed lamp. “Goodnight”.
It was dark. Soon, Seema started snoring.
But she did not sleep. Though she behaved as if she was going to sleep instantly, but she was just waiting for Seema to sleep.
“He is not that bad looking.”, she thought to herself, “Rather he is handsome…”, she smiled.
Suddenly she got up, put on the bed lamp and looked for her handbag. She found it on the bed only… opened the zip and there was the thing she was looking for. Very carefully, she took out the hanky Swapnil had given… a neatly folded white hanky. She unfolded it. One corner of the hanky had a “S” embroidered with golden thread on it.
“S for Swapnil…”, she thought.
She took the hanky up to her nose and smelled it. It smelt like a known perfume…
“Yes!! It has the same fragrance my father’s favorite perfume has.”
She folded it back as it was and kept it under her pillow.
“I will wash it and return to him on Monday.” She switched off the lamp again.
The next two days just flew away as she imagined her conversation with Swapnil again and again… how she will go to 20th floor and find him… how she will thank him again… and how she will return him his hanky… how he will react… Woven into these threads, was the feeling that slowly she had started liking that person.
She was surprised, how the whole time she was engrossed in thinking about Swpanil so much that she had forgotten to call up her parents. It occurred to her only when they called up and asked her well being.
Seema teased her every now and then and this teasing made her more pulled towards the thoughts of Swpanil. And she blushed…
On Monday, she was really excited about going to office. She avoided formals that day and took out the pink dress in which everybody had praised her. Though, she preferred wearing formals to office, but that day, was different.
“This dress is sober and I don’t think it will violate dress ethics of this company. Besides, I have seen so many girls wearing much more eye-catching dresses and coming to office.”, she assured herself as she pressed the dress carefully. She did not forget to press the hanky too, which she had washed and dried the day before. She neatly folded and kept it in her purse.
She reached at the office by 9 AM sharp. She thought of going to 20th floor directly and look for Swapnil. She told the lift man to go to 20th floor. Hearing this everybody looked at her… the lift man asked her to tell the floor number once again.
“20th floor…”, she repeated herself.
“Lekin madam lift wahan tak nahi jata hai… (But madam, lift does not go to that floor…).”, the lift man said with a innocent smile.
“Nahi jata?? Kya matlab nahi jata?? (what do you mean by ‘does not go to that floor??’)”, she was surprised by the denial of the lift man.
“Arey madam, wahan tak lift ja hi nahi sakta… sirf 19th floor tak hi jata hai.. (The lift goes only up to 19th floor)”.
“There is nothing on the 20th floor… Don’t you know that? Most probably you need to go the top floor of this building and the 19th floor is considered as the top floor of this building.”, one of the persons, present in the lift, told her.
“Oh… then 6th floor please.”, she tried to hide her disbelief.
The lift doors got opened at the 6th floor and she got out of it. But she did not go into the office; rather she stood just at the corridor and kept on looking at the lift. Te lift went till 19th floor and then it again came down.
In the mean time the 2nd lift reached the 6th floor and Sinchita came out of it.
“Hi!! What are you doing here?? Ohh… you don’t have the access card right?? Okay… come with me…”, Sinchita went towards the door and opened it with her access card.
She did not say anything… just smiled and followed Sinchita into the office. She came to her seat and sat there.
The whole time she was disturbed. “How can it be possible? I saw the lift coming down from the 20th floor and he said me that he sits at 20th floor!!”. She tried to search by giving his name in the outlook. And she could not believe her eyes when she saw the blank screen with just a single line “No matching results found.”.
“What happened? You look disturbed?”, suddenly Sinchita asked her.
“Nothing…”, she hesitated for a moment, “Achha Sinchita, what is there at the 20th floor of this building?”.
“20th floor?? Nothing… It is empty. Why??”, Sinchita looked little more concerned now.
“Actually, on Friday…”, And she told he everything that had happened in that Friday night and how she came to know about the 20th floor today in the morning.
“What was the name? Swapnil??…”, there was horror in Sinchita’s eyes. “But that is impossible!!”.
“Do you know him??”, She was little suspicious now.
“I don’t know, but it seems just impossible. You know, before 2 years, there was a guy in our team whose name was Swpanil Sharma and he looked somewhat like you had explained about the appearance of the person you had met on Friday. But…”, Sinchit hold back her breathe.
“But… but what??? Does he work in some other project now?”, she asked.
“No, but at that time we used to sit at the 20th floor. Then one Friday evening, when everybody had left, Swapnil had stayed back for finishing some pending work. That night, the electrical wiring in that floor had a short circuit and cut fire and slowly the furniture also cut fire and Swapnil got trapped there. By the time the security personnel got hint of fire and called fire brigade the whole floor was burnt and Swapnil was burnt alive. After that incident our company never rebuilt that floor.”, Sinchita said the whole thing without pausing.
“But I saw him… I talked to him… he opened the door for me… he walked till the main road with me…”, and then it came clear to her… those stares from the security guards, the look in the betel shopkeeper’s eyes, they saw her talking with nobody actually… it was only she who could see him. Even she could realize how she did not see him in the lift from 20th floor and the way he got vanished the moment she came for the rickshaw…
She suddenly felt terrified. She was with a ghost and she had started to like a person who was not a living man; rather a ghost!!
“Are you alright?”, Sinchita hold her hands and asked.
“hmmm ???”, she came out of her thoughts instantly.
“Lets go out and have a cup of tea…”, Sinchita stood up.
She also stood up and went out with her. They came out of the building and went to the nearby tea stall. When Sinchita was ordering for 2 cups of tea, she looked up at the top most floor of the building. It was getting dark outside. Unlike the other floors, 7th floor was in complete darkness. All the window glasses were broken.
At that instance she remembered about the hanky she had with her. She opened her purse and took out the hanky. It was still there, just the way she had put it in the morning. She, automatically, once again, took it close to her nose and sniffed. She went pale. It had, strangely, a brunt smell. She opened it and to her disbelief, it was half burnt. The golden “S” was still there but it had lost its shine.
She looked up. And to her surprise, through one of the broken glass windows she could see a small source of light and there stood Swapnil, smiling at her.
“Sinchita…”, she shouted.
Sinchita came running towards her… “What happened??”.
“Look… Swapnil…”, she pointed towards the window.
“Where??”, Sinchita’s eyes followed her finger, “What are you talking about? There is no body… are you alright?”.
Surprised, she looked at Sinchita and looked up towards the window again… she could see him standing there and smiling…This time she smiled back while clutching the hanky tightly in her fist and mumbled “Thank you…”.
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P.S. The idea for this fiction came into my mind when the top floor of a building, nearby to my office building, cut fire. No body was injured as it is still under construction and the workers were removed immediately.
