END OF A DAY

Tick tick, went on the clock.

Dub dub, went on his heart.

They shared a strange synchrony, his heart and the clock. Both were helpless sentinels of the passing time.

He looked at the clock. About five minutes before the office closes for the day. He could leave now but he will not. Somehow it did not feel right and besides if he left now he would have to move across the corridor where the whole office would notice his awkward stoop, his ill-fitting clothes, then they would talk and joke about it (most probably they did it already). Maybe they would even notice his unkempt hair that despite his cajoling, coaxing and even threatening refused to stay proper and in place. Next time he visits his barber, something ought to be done about it. If only he had gone bald like his neighbour, he would not have to worry about hair and barbers then. But would not he look grotesque, with his thick nose and whipped ears. Would it be worth it?

          “Sir are you leaving today or not?”

          “Yes. Yes, of course. I was just… err… wrapping it up.”

        Out on the footpath with slow measured steps he started walking to his home.

So one more day ends. Just like the one before it. And the one before that. And the others before them. It was as if he had lived one day and some giant divine gadget photocopied that single day, again and again, with such a whirring sound that is as irritating as the whir of car-engines rushing by. They are all in a hurry-these cars. Yet they never seem to reach anywhere. Condemned to roll daily as absurdly as that Sisyphus about whom he had read in the college. Come to think of it, how long has it been since he read anything but the newspapers and his office papers. As far as he can remember he had not read anything since his college days. Why didn’t he?

No the better question would be why should he? When he was in college he had this fancy to become a famous writer or a personality famous enough to be written about. And for some time he even believed that he was destined to be so. He had laid out a vague plan of action to achieve his fancy. College ended. He got a job, got married, had kids. And just like that half his life was spent and all that fanciful youth was forever lost.

       Honk! Honk!

Damn this traffic. So much noise. They just can’t let a man walk in peace. They and their Godforsaken cars. Years ago he himself had almost bought a car. At the last moment he backed off. How could he buy a car! He would have to learn how to drive, that meant a lot of ridicule and sly whispers. If that was not enough he would be expected to take his family for drives and sometimes his relatives and friends and neighbours as well. No! No that would not do. It was very scary to even consider such thoughts. So scary that it reminded him of a phrase that he had heard long ago on the radio ‘An open drawer of knives’. Yes that was how his mind felt ‘an open drawer of knives’. They were probably discussing poetry that evening on the radio. Such arguments and discussions they had. Impressive it was back then but funnily all he remembered now was ‘an open drawer of knives’. The impressive arguments and discussion he forgot. Maybe because he didn’t understand all that erudite talk about imagery and metaphors. But this phrase stuck to his mind whether he understood it or not, it just stuck like a thirsty leech that sucked the blood of his thoughts inside his head. A head so full of noises- tick tick; dub dub; honk honk.

Would death stop all this noise? Let us just say he steps on to the road, a fast car hits him, there would be much noise and cries. But when the blood ceases to spurt would the noises stop? What would be it like to lie there and not hear a thing amidst all that hue and din? Not even his own heartbeat! It was so enticingly simple to find out the answer. Just a step. Should he try? It would take a small little step.

“Hey you crazy lunatic, step away or die.”

Yes the voice from the car was right. It is lunacy. A moment of craziness. He should consult a Doctor. Or was it normal? Does everybody have moments of craziness? The crazier and/or the luckier ones die instantly while the others like him live to die at some other moment of craziness. Such strange men we are, pretending to be different. Even if we really are different, what difference does it really make, you are always just a step away from craziness and once crazy we are all the same. What else explains his uncle hanging himself? One day he is hale and hearty, smiling and eating. Next day he stares at you with his bursting eyes, suspended between earth and sky as if he had come across some great cosmic secret which had taken his breath away. It was said he was not brave enough. He had pancreatic cancer and he just could not cope up with it. But what was the point of him being brave? You could be brave to tide over your suffering but when the suffering is terminal what should you be brave for? Only if his Uncle had been born in some other time, a time when there were no doctors and no tests. Nobody would have found about the cancer lurking in his pancreas. He would have continued eating and smiling. Nobody would have told him that his time was up before it was up. He would have lived some more. Who knows in that time he might have no cancer at all. He could be still living. Both of them-he and his uncle, in some different time at some different place where there was no clock, no office, no traffic, no noise, no craziness, no cancer.

He had reached his home. He was standing at the door. The house needed a fresh coat of paint. Pieces of plaster were falling down. The roof needed some repairs as well. Even the window could do with some new panes in place of the old broken ones. Had the house been like what he wanted he would have done all that long ago. When he bought the house the rooms were bigger and the lawn was smaller than he wanted. He would have liked more windows as well. Someday if he built his own house he would keep all that in mind.

His wife opened the door. He walked in. She took his bag while saying, “So how was your day?”

He could have said his day was boring and monotonous. He was fed off his office and the traffic and the noise, he had almost committed suicide and he missed his uncle. But that would mean to give up the numbness of routine which he had got used to. That would mean to give up his photocopied days. He could not stand the thought of living through blank day without precedents and ritual routines.

“It was alright. How was yours?”