Blissful Oblivion

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. 

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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