Though it was 9 O’clock in the morning, you couldn’t really tell that from the way the day looked. It was utterly grey and gloomy, like a dead dove lying on the cement pavement. And of course, who would want to go to work on such a day! She could already feel the Monday blues creeping in, forcing her to go back to bed.
With a sigh, she got up, she had already taken quite a few leaves this month, what with her boyfriend visiting and all, and simply couldn’t afford to take any more. Not to humour her whimsical mood anyway. There was a fly buzzing around her face. Swatting it with her left hand, she proceeded towards the washroom.
The nice long shower did help a bit, and she decided to wear those expensive Levi’s denims, if only to give her whiny mood a boost of some sort. While clasping her blouse she noticed a fly again, buzzing if a bit too closely. Damn! She really needed to clean up after the weekend’s mess, or perhaps call the cleaning crew of which she saw an ad on Facebook the other day? Never mind, that could be decided on later. She was getting late, and the possibility of missing the office cab was growing high. Today is not a day to live life dangerously, she decided and hurried towards the stairs.
The 15 odd kilometres to office generally allowed her to have a nap nice enough so as to not feel sleepy before lunch hour. But she was roused from her revery by extremely odd random tingling feelings on her face. Irritated, she noticed a couple of flies buzzing around, making her face their resting island every once in a while. Swearing, she tried to fall back into her nap.
The day wasn’t getting any better for her – first her boss yelled at her for not sending him the files of a project she didn’t know she was working on, and then at lunch her mum called and gushed about this suitable boy they’d met at some wedding. Not to mention she still had 4 more hours to go before she could leave. And on top of everything she was being bothered by this irritating rotten smell, like that of a dead frog. She asked the peon to check where it came from, and to do something about the flies, but in vain. Even after spraying some of her own body spray the few flies kept buzzing around.
The moment the clock showed 6.30 she jumped on her feet and made way for the lift, not even bothering to say bye to the people in the adjacent cubicles. She’d had enough this horrible day. Even after the peon cleaned (claimed to, more likely) her cubicle, the horrible stench didn’t go away and, in fact, grew stronger!
Reaching her apartment, she threw her bag on the couch and headed straight for the washroom – she needed a bath, badly. Under the shower, her skin felt really pudgy – like she needed one more reason to feel bad about herself! Her appetite lost, she made a beeline for her bed. This day needed to end, ASAP.
She woke up with a jolt but had to close her eyes promptly back because of the blinding sunlight. What a horrible nightmare that was! The images of the dream played again on her minds screen; It started with exactly the way they had spent Sunday, from after they left the resto bar they went to dine in. But instead of the blissful memories, in her dream she saw Shantanu breaking up with her – for reasons she couldn’t tell. The dream version of her had started crying and screaming, begging him not to, accusing him of infidelity, refusing to let go of him. And the dream version of her boyfriend of 5 years mercilessly clubbed her on the head with a hammer to death, then threw her body out of the running car’s door into the lake they had often gone to, whenever Shantanu would come to visit her. She tried getting up, but couldn’t; feeling like she was on a big trampoline, among the horrible stench from yesterday, she squinted against the sun. And that’s when she saw. She screamed in horror, but her voice, just like her life, had finally left her.