Pawanraj Sadhwani

Something is troubling you.

You do not know what it is. You cannot pinpoint it. You try to turn the dial to bring into sharp focus the spectrum of emotions so you can hear them clearly - but find only vague incoherent static. The tuning mechanism of your life-radio is broken; you cannot tune out the static.

It's not a sharp pain. It's a dull, undefined general feeling of malaise and unease. It's not isolated or diagnosed to a particular cause. It's just there - pervading your general life experience. Like that persistent irritation which will not go away no matter how many times you clear your throat. Like that headache which doesn't stop you in your tracks, but doesn't let you ignore it either.

So you keep going about your daily routine. And there is no problem as such. But you frown when you wake up in the morning, as you have to make an effort to throw off the covers and drag yourself out of bed. You stare for a few seconds too long, first at the wall as you sit up on the bed trying to will yourself off it, then at the stream of water emerging out of the faucet in the bathroom, avoiding looking at yourself in the mirror when you brush. You don't even really want to brush your teeth, but you do. You forego the shave, however - that one day old black stubble is like ... glitter. It's there, betraying you to the world if they care to look closely. You iron your shirt, but not your trousers. Your shoes stay unpolished. It's just not a day for shiny shoes. Not today.

You walk to work, but take a longer route. If someone saw you, they would see a man alternatively staring off into the distance, and intently staring at the asphalt he is walking on, almost like he is counting the number of cracks on the road. You linger around at the cart serving coffee outside your office building - staring at the wisps of white smoke emerging out of the blackness of the liquid, but unlike other days - you do not smell the coffee. It is not the day for such pleasures. Not today.

You walk up to your office, passing by the usual hordes of office-humanity - trying to tune out the static that is a confusion of spoken words, sighs patient and impatient, clacking shoes, dinging elevators and ringing telephones. Today everything is a little blurred. The whites are a little more yellow than white, the greys are a tiny bit greyer than usual. Your smile at the receptionist is a tiny bit colder. Your response to your boss' greeting is a tiny bit delayed, as he catches up to you on the way to elevator. You are a tiny bit miffed that you would be forced to share the elevator with another person. Just for today, you wanted the 10 second journey up to floor 23 to be in solitude. Maybe, this is good, the small talk is what stops you from falling deeper into the hole, the edge of which you are teetering on. You are miffed anyway. You're not ready for small talk. Not today.

You walk past the mahogany door, past the hospital-like sterile sameness of cubicles, the green carpet, the grey cubicles with frosted glass, and the grey frosted people inside. You don't even say good morning to your colleague who looks at you with expectant eyes - wanting - you know - to talk about the incredible football game last night. Not today. Not today.

You hurry past it all to your own cubicle right in the middle of this row of cubicles. Your special place in the sea of corporate sameness, housing replaceable, expendable faceless, nameless cogs in the machine. They are all the same. Everything is all the same. Different. But same.

It is this sameness, isn't it? It this why you feel like a screw that is drilled in ever so slightly off center? A screw that will do the job, but is not just so? Is this what is bothering you?

The thought crosses your mind, flitting across the surface like a pond-skater, creating tiny ripples. But you don't pursue it. This thought will have to wait. You cannot give it your attention. Not today. Not today.