“.. in these unprecedented times, the little things shouldn’t be taken lightly. these are the things that make our lives happier…” the radio’s voice is interrupted by a loud static, as I drive through a long tunnel on the expressway. The static annoyed me a little, so I turn off the radio. I think to myself, Unprecedented-a a fancy new word for the media to toy around with. As the tunnel ends, my view is engulfed with dense dusky clouds. The color of the sky is pitch dark grey & through the window, I see a dark blue glow all around. It’s about 7 in the evening, I put the car into cruise control as the next step would be after 25-30kms. When I relax for a bit and look across the dark countryside fields have grown out to be into a dark dense forest of old massive trees. Nature has a free pass on doing whatever it likes to ever since we humans stop interfering with it. It has been the longest 5 years since the virus broke out. Sure there have been vaccines and multiple variants of it for multiple types of patients. The cure did work, and things stabilized a lot. Only after a whole year of economic despair for the masses. So much so that the people infected wouldn’t afford the vaccine, even at the subsidized rate. Government being government took too long to offer it for free to the masses. They had their fat paycheck and used it as an essential tool for the elections. Then, gave it to the masses. However, it was too late by then… the psychological impact it took on the young generation was just too much. From forming cults that believed the virus was a cure for nature’s freedom to resisting the vaccine and living a depleted life quality only as a protest against the world organization for making the vaccine too expensive. Sure, the people who remain sane through it all were the artistic people singing the best form of music they knew, painting the best portraits they ever could… It was irony as its finest form, as the world went from needing lawyers, politicians, health origination to more self-focused institutions of living, exercise & art culture. Now, the Fields like IT, Security boomed only in terms of volume but not quality. They soon become the sheep’s herd where people did the task of humongous data collection, aggregation, and analysis to sell ads. Technology, cars & travel soon become the basic food & clothing standard, they were just an expense now rather than a field of profession and innovation. Times have changed a lot.
The toll arrives, I skim through the left lane as I take control of the car. As I drive past the go-ahead to make a stop at a nearby coffee store for refreshment. The clouds burst into a thundering rain. It hits the ground like a storm. The rain made sure the sunset earlier than it usually does. I wait for a while for it to stop so I could have some tea/coffee, but it only got worse …
The strong air wind current made the raindrops hit the car with such intensity that the only sound I could hear was of intense drizzling. I decide to drive along before the conditions made it impossible to drive. I turn on the wiper, but it wasn’t enough. I barely moved a couple of meters before someone jumped into my car by opening the rear door. He dripped all over the seats and wore a black raincoat that went well along with its dark grey mask. I scream “hey!!! What the…” and my car brakes screech loudly.
“Look man, I just need to reach the next toll, I have to work at night… it’s my shift if I don’t would lose my jobs… Please help me out!”
I put on my mask kept in my dash, I see around 7 messages notification before I could check it … I realized that I was stuck in the middle of nowhere with a stranger. He continues
“I can pay you 500 bucks! Could you please hurry?”
“The next toll stop is of Satara around 167 Km away… I hope that works for you.”
I then drive away into the rains for the next couple of minutes until a conversation breaks out: –
“So are you going on another workcation?” I ask him and feeling utterly foolish using the word workcation…
“Well yes and no, I believe no form of a vacation involves any form of work. But this shitty coronavirus has made the world a remote hub for working from anywhere…”
“I remember when I use to work for one of the corporations like you do…”
I continue “I absolutely hated from the start. It was my first job and I hated it since the pre-covid phase. As the pandemic hit us, my optimistic soul decided to free-lance…”
“We are all just freelancers of living life… we distracted our minds from living it into things like a good salary, a lot of work so we have an excuse for our poor morale and discipline…” he interrupts me…
“Hmm, that’s what I thought when I tried to clean, cook and work with a mouse and tablet in my other hand… until I tripped over the broomstick… dipped my machine in a puddle of utensils and soap…”
“I thought nothing can be shittier than a 12-hr. shift and living all by yourself… until I eliminated the former and lived with the latter…” I conclude as I put my car in cruise control again…
“Trust me if you don’t leave, you keep doing this life of work and personal work takes a backseat with no time for yourself. You end up running, your mind jogs but you don’t….” he replies
Our conversation is what thousands of young adults face today. The saturated menial work but secure till retirement vs the life of exploring yourself. I choose the life of exploring myself and quit my job a year after the virus. My promotion was just due, but I hated every second of it. The first few days were peaceful. Then it was those slog days of life that have no meaning to the days of a hyper-productivity machine. Reading novels every hour to exercising in the evening to the home chores. This cycle of enjoying then lying on the edge of my couch as the end of the world to living healthier … continued for years and years…
I had exhausted all my savings, I tried to pursue singing in between those years but these days… singing was limited to online videos and pay to listen to apps. I couldn’t make any of them…
The rain didn’t slow down at all, it rained with the same intensity. We cross a milestone which says 78km to Satara.
Now, here I was after 5 years, giving a ride to just another employee of just another corporation. While I yearned to ace my interview tomorrow for another role to live for another few more years at some company called DSB….
My phone rings, as I reach for it, the passengers got scared to death. I looked at him as he shivers with fear like one would in this heavy rain. I ask him “What’s wrong?”
“Don’t pick it up, please!”
“It’s not a bomb!” I joked.
But instead of laughs, his faltered words and a bit softer voice starts explaining “ I didn’t get enough time… it’s not fair… I should have the chance…”
“for what?”
The phone rings again…
This time I ignore the passenger’s warning and pick it up.
“Stop your car right now!” a girl screams through the tiny speakers of my phone
While my car sails on 80 km/hr. via cruise control, I ask “Why? What the fuck is wrong?”
The passenger now becomes totally uneasy and starts uneasy rolling from left seat to right and back…
“trust me, it’s your Uniform Disorder”
“What?”
My head suddenly starts hurting as I see the passenger hitting his head repeated across the windowpane and repeating “You must not take the job … you must not…”
“Hello? Hello? Stop it !” the girl over phones repeats it
My head bursts into pain and anxiety with so much chaos …
I scream “STOPPPP!” with all the energy I had in my voice.
The passenger stops but now he’s crying profusely and removes his mask. He looks an awful lot similar to someone I have seen… until I realize he somewhat looks a lot like me… in my past life… in the younger years…
I just had to stop now…
I hit the brakes but it’s a little too much and a little too late as the car skids off-road and crashes itself into a huge tree…
The airbags pounce in my face and the car crashes & breaks down…
I lie sub-conscious for few hours with my face dug into the puffy airbag…
When I wake up, I see a scar on my forehead which bleeds and looks as if I tried to hit the window with my head.
I see the passenger standing out calmly deep into the woods surrounded by dark trees… the rain had slowed down too…
Strangely, despite the accident and all the mess I didn’t feel angry for a bit.
It was as if whatever he felt, would translate to how I would end up feeling. Uneasy back in the car during the school but calm now post the accident in these dense woods.
I Stepped out to talk to him, to understand why he did what he did…
He tells me “I hate my job, and I could stand a single second of it, I wanted to leave just like you… after I left the condition only got worse… I couldn’t find where my interest aligned… I smoked up all my savings on this car… then I had nothing to do or anything to pursue that interested me…
I felt like nothing…or no one in this world mattered. The loneliness made me lose my grip. I took therapy with my parents’ money… things got better I changed myself from a couch potato to a productive machine.
It still felt like a job to us … you know? Reading, singing, writing, doing the same old chores again and again…
It just felt like doing what’s right… eventually, they convinced us to become normal… and tried getting a job for us…”
“US? THE US? Who the fuck are you, why do u look like me?” I ask him puzzled as he sounded like me narrating my own life story….
“I told you it’s never enough time!”
A car rushes into the forest from behind, I look behind… it’s my therapist. She jumps out of my car. I look back out again to find the passenger missing… he was gone in a split second. It was like he wasn’t even here. I found myself in his black raincoat.
She panicked and started crying… as she sobbed while trying to patch my forehead wound with her handkerchief. She finally started speaking “Schizophreniform Disorder is making you live your worst day again. Usually, I have stopped you when you enter the car but this is by far the most far you have gotten. The job that rejected you is of so many years back, when you visited Bangalore for an interview and drove for a whole day… It’s okay you will get another job … another interview will be aligned… we will toe your car than repair it and I will not inform anybody about this mishap”
She continues to cry “No one needs to know “
My phone rings again…I try to find it in the mess of my crashed car… it felled at the front co passengers’ seat with a cracked screen…
It’s an unknown number, I pick it up “hello? Who’s this?” I enquire
“Yea, it’s PLC technologies, we have an interview scheduled for tomorrow. It would be a telephonic interview. What time would be comfortable for you?”
I get a chill down my spine and my phone slips through my hand. I am shell shocked and all I could think about was the panicking passenger who said on loop “You must not take the job! Job!” Should I trust him? or this genuine therapist who has been trying to make me feel better ever since. Is this the new normal? or just the same old normal?
Notyoureverydayblog 