by Anupama Krishnakumar
She dashed into her cubicle taking him by surprise.
‘Looking hot, eh? Even at this hour.’ He commented, ‘blue jeans, white shirt and all – doing magic!’
No response.
Just heavy breathing.
God, I need a puff now, she thought as desperation churned within, creating ripples of panic inside her.
Tough long day, no time for a break and now, rains outside. And her pack of cigarettes was empty. Fantastic on a sarcastic note, damn on a desperate note and why-oh-why on a reflective note. Thoughts raged.
‘Shameless, smoking inside the office?’ she chided him.
He raised his eyebrows in surprise.
‘So all the silence all this while was only to contemplate and say this?’
She was drumming her fingers on the work table already. She had thrown her slippers which now lay carelessly under the desk. She had both her legs up on the chair.
The clock on the desk said 11:30 PM. Not much was happening inside the office at that hour, as always – they were just around to handle any sudden ‘breaking news’. The news channel’s office was blissfully silent.
‘Do you have another one?’ she asked nonchalantly, shaking her head referring to the dwindling stick in his hand.
‘Ah, no’ he answered and then pausing a bit, added, ‘unfortunately.’ And he winked, quite unnecessarily. He gently tapped it on the ash tray, discarding the grey ash – remnants of nicotine that had done its bit for yet another addict.
She looked longingly at the ash tray and then frowned, looking his way.
He shrugged.
‘Damn, this addiction gives me the shivers,’ she sighed.
‘Fear is such a bad thing, you know,’ he chipped in matter-of-factly, ‘it takes you nowhere.’
She stared hard. She hated philosophy without a solution.
She stood up and opened her mouth to say something and then quickly changed her mind. No point talking.
She collapsed into her chair and stretching her legs, picked up the single post-it note on her table and began rolling it till it looked and felt like a fine stick of cigar. Slowly, she held it between her clumsily shaking fingers and placed it on her quivering, red lips. She then closed her eyes. It felt weird like crazy but she was learning to cope with the absence of her dear, dreadful stick. A beginning, perhaps, to move on.
Anupama Krishnakumar loves Physics and English and sort of managed to get degrees in both – studying Engineering and then Journalism. Yet, as she discovered a few years ago, it is the written word that delights her soul and so here she is, doing what she loves to do – spinning tales for her small audience and for her little son, singing lullabies to her little daughter, bringing together a lovely team of creative people and spearheading Spark. She loves books, music, notebooks and colour pens and truly admires simplicity in anything! Tomatoes send her into a delightful tizzy, be it in soup or rasam or ketchup or atop a pizza!
