Ajay was as usual humming his favorite tune on
his way to office. He stopped by McD which is his frequent haunt for a quick
breakfast. He gave a friendly smile to the McD guy and asked for a McSpicy
Paneer with Ice Tea. The guy behind the counter made a weird expression and said
“Seems like you are hungry again, would like a pack of fries too which could be
made into a McD meal?” There was a pinch of sarcasm in the guy’s tone and Ajay couldn’t
figure out what the being hungry again part was about. Anyway, he was hungry as
well as late and hence accepted the offer and gobbled his breakfast and started
off to office without giving a second thought.
Reaching office, Ajay booted up his system and
opened the file on which he was working on last. The deadline had been Friday
but in a weekend mood he had just left the office thinking he can cook up some
excuse when needed. His lead was not yet in, so with any luck he could finish
it soon now and mail it before he checks in. Opening the file, Ajay was
surprised to see that the work was already done. He distinctly remembered
leaving it unfinished and yet here it was, totally finished. He racked his
brains for some time and figured that he was being absent minded and proceeded
with glee to just mail the file. On an urge, he checked the sent mails and his
mouth popped open. There was a mail from him to his lead with the completed
work attached. With a subject “Horrible
Hitler” and a single line in the mail – “There, take it you horrible Hitler, I
have completed it. Still I somehow know that you will come with a dozen
mistakes in what I have completed perfectly after weeks of effort”. His blood
froze. He tried many ways of retracting the mail all the while thinking what
the hell happened and how all this happened when he didn’t remember doing any
of it.
His lead came in and walked over to his
cubicle. Ajay fervently prayed that all this should be a nightmare and he
should wake up any minute and realize that he is late for his office. However, nothing
of that sort happened, instead the communicator pinged. It was his lead asking
Ajay to come to his cubicle. Preparing himself for the worst, Ajay went in. One
hour of lecture on office etiquette and professionalism and respectful
teamwork and after apologizing and assuring that this would never happen again
and convincing that the stress had gotten to him, Ajay was out. He was shaken. He
didn’t know what to do. He was trying to think on the optimistic side - he was
not fired at the least! But still, was it better that some things have happened
of which he had no clue of and yet he was to blame?
Just to take his mind off, he logged into his
personal mail which opens with a 10 minute session for an hour. Damn office
rules! He was just skimming through the many unread mails and saw that there
were so many mails from FB saying that so and so accepted your friend request.
Almost 10 mails of that order and all were people whom he didn’t know at all!!!
When did he send friend requests to strangers??? Adding more, there were some chats/mails to
some unknown people and all these mails were signed “The Guy in the Hat”. The Guy
in the what??? His immediate thought was that his accounts are compromised. But
that did not explain his office account being compromised. He had no record of
his office mail id in his personal mails and he had never written down anything
related to office anywhere. Then how the hell all this has happened! Ajay’s gut
feeling told him that this was only the beginning. He hated that because his
gut feeling was almost always right. What else has happened that he didn’t
know?
The McD guy’s comment came into his mind and
Ajay felt that he could put something in place. He thought about that guy who
looked exactly like himself and whom he kept bumping into everywhere he went since
a few days- wearing the red shirt and smirking at him whenever they crossed
roads. He had even tried to confront that guy in the lift and asked who he was
and how he looked like his mirror image except for that smirk. The guy had simply
ignored him and the other people in the lift were staring at Ajay weirdly, as
if he was insane. He had tried to follow the guy to find out more but that guy
just gave him the slip somehow at all times. He appeared only when he wanted to
and vanished before Ajay could catch up. Hence, Ajay had given up thinking it
was a lost cause.
His head started to ache. He pinged his lead
and said that he was not feeling well and requested if he could take the day
off. The reply was terse but nevertheless the permission was granted as there
was not much work to do that day. He reached the lift and entered it. Only
after the doors closed, Ajay noticed that someone else was there too. He turned
around to see who it was and his insides froze. It was the smirk guy. Ajay
opened his mouth to confront this guy as he felt a sharp prick near his neck.
Then it was all black.
Ajay woke up with a start. What the hell was
that dream about? It was one hell of a nightmare. Shaking his head, he looked at the clock. The
time drove everything else out of his mind. “Oh my gosh! It’s almost 9” He was
late for office and he had to complete the work which he was supposed to have
completed on Friday. Ajay jumped out his bed and got ready in a rush. He was
starving as he didn’t eat the previous night too. He had to stop by McD for a
quick breakfast. He started humming his favorite tune as he stepped out.
********************************************************************************
Hello folks,
I hope you enjoyed the post. I wrote this hoping
against hope that you are not already pissed off with The Guy in the Hat going
on about his invasion of Ajay’s blog. I just thought a real world invasion story
would be a nice thing to give as a 200-followers-count present for Ajay :P I am evil, right? Yeah, I know :P Anyway let
us all give a big applause to Ajay for having written such awesome/humorous/rambling/poetic/you-fill-whatever-you-want
posts that have drawn 200 followers to this space. Congrats dude! And thanks
for letting me go wild on this space without even proof-reading. I hope you are not regretting it already ;)
What The
Guy in the Hat did with the blacked out Ajay is up to your imagination. That
was an intentional open end addressed to The Guy in the Hat. And the other
intentional open end that the same routine could happen again is addressed to
Ajay :P
Until later,
Keirthana :)
P.S: Ajay, How about fainting now? No? You are a tougie :P
