The Devil is the New Intern by Saville’s Desk

It was an unusually quiet day in the office. There was a continuous drone as people went about their business as usual. I glanced at the watch that hung from one of the pillars that was almost awkwardly erected right at the center of the room. The clock showed ten fifteen, I let out a sigh, it felt as if hours had passed since I had swiped my card in the morning. I fetched out a cigarette from the packet and lit it, inhaled deeply and exhaled smoke rings that broke as they hit the monitor’s sides. Laziness was in the air along with my smoke rings and there wasn’t much work to do either. I felt like having tea and then decided against it; it would be too much work to make tea myself, I’d rather wait for the tea guy to come at eleven.

With the cigarette stuck between the first and the middle, I typed an email. It was a reminder to one of my friends to arrange for beer for the weekend. It had been ages since I had had beer and the thought of sipping on Muree Classic while listening to Radio Head brought a smile to my face. I remembered the last time we had gone to the beach and I just couldn’t take my eyes off the billion or so stars, which seemed to dance exquisitely to the magic of Pink Floyd. When you have had four Classics and two jays, you can’t get your eyes off virtually anything!

Suddenly the phone rang disrupting the highly inebriated thoughts. I gave my mechanical greeting and waited for the other side to respond. I repeated the hello, this once a little agitated. There is nothing that I hate more than a dumb call. Finally the phone limbo echoed with a gentle greeting of a woman.

“Yes?” I answered.

“Ummm… I would like to speak to Sara.” She sounded anxious.

“Sara?” I repeated, “well ma’am, I do not think there is a Sara in this department.”

“Are you sure, because she asked me to dial one oh six to get to her.” Very confused.

“This certainly is one oh six ma’am, but I’m afraid…” I broke off in the middle of the sentence as Raza (situated in my neighboring cubical) gestured and instructed me to hold.

“Can you hold on for a sec?” I asked the lady on the phone while simultaneously raising my hands and searching Raza’s face for an answer.

“Sure.”

I pressed the hold button on my phone set and faced Raza.

“What honey?” I tried to sound pissed.

“Dude, there is a new intern by that name. She sits with Saville.” He turned his head to look but my eyes had already searched Saville’s desk for a woman. Nothing. “Man, she must’ve gone out or something.” He said in his croaky tone, raising his head and trying to search some more.

I cleared my throat and pressed the hold button again, “ Hello?” She answered. “Well there is a Sara in the department but she’s out. I didn’t know she had joined hence the confusion, sorry.” I crushed the remains of the cigarette in the ashtray.

“Please don’t worry about it. And if you can, let her know I called.” A little relaxed, “this is her sister.”

“Will do that, bye.” I pushed my glasses over the nose and looked at the watch. Time flies when you’re having fun therefore only four minutes had passed since I last checked time.

I turned my head to the side and touched my lower lip with a fist. The work went on in a monotone, a state that I had by now become used to and sometimes loathed. I was part of this everydayness; a single DNA, an integral unit of an assembling facility that manufactures languor, a fundamental component of this repetition, without me the boredom wouldn’t last a minute. Therefore I decided to interrupt the boredom and to break the state of endlessness by getting off my seat and going to the ‘restroom’ (as my boss loved to call it). I got off my seat, stretched and grabbed a cigarette and scribbled a note for ‘Sara’ on a Post It. As I stuck the note on Saville’s monitor I wondered why had I not seen the woman yet. I gave a ‘couldn’t care less’ shrug and announced that if anybody needed me he/she will have to wait. I walked towards the door; somebody was already entering from the other side, I stepped back and waited for that person to enter.

Now when I try to think about what came to my mind when I first saw her, I cannot put my finger on it. There are various versions; some are amplified strictly for sake of theater and the other, more authentic accounts have either been remembered too many times therefore forgotten or have been mutilated or given an alternative description to wishfully equivocate fate. But no matter how much I may have forgotten or maimed, there is one thing that never goes away, her beauty. It struck me, as if someone had hit me with a bloody sledgehammer right where it hurts the most. The dark eyes penetrated and the contours, dear Jesus, the contours had me lusting for her that very moment. She walked clumsily with quick steps, lips slightly parted, and she would have run me over had I not been overwhelmed with her presence. I just stood there like a clay statue, unable to move, unable to think. She suddenly stopped and said in a voice that wouldn’t have been possible unless her throat was filled with shards of glass, “Uhhh... yours?.” She pointed to the floor. “You dropped your cigarette.” I turned red and could hear bouts of laughter rising from different cubicles. I thanked her, picked the cigarette and walked away.

For the entire fifteen minutes that I was in the bathroom, I did not stop thinking about her. It was as if I was hurting, which was ridiculous. I had hardly met her for a few seconds and all I could think of now was that I wouldn’t be able to make it without her. I felt the need with such a strong impulse that denying it would be tormenting. I consumed the cigarette very quickly, flushed and hurriedly washed up. As I dashed out of the bathroom I saw Raza waving at me from the end of the corridor, he was smiling.

“Yeah?” I asked nonchalantly as I walked towards him.

He was still smiling and his words came out splayed, “Man, she could’ve gotten away with a state assasination back there.”

“Say what?” I frowned, trying very hard not to blush.

“You should’ve seen yourself when you were checking her out, dude it looked like you were having a seizure.” He was trying to get his sandwich (that he had just bought from the little store within the office building) out of the cellophane.

“What ever man.” I attempted to say that with a straight face and failed miserably.

“What a coincidence!” he said with his mouth full of shami kebab sandwich, his voice muffled.

“What do you mean?” I asked while pretending to search for something over the little makeshift store’s counter.

“She is Sara.”

“She is what?” I knew it before he could say it but still I wanted to hear him say it aloud.

“Dude, she is the woman you received the call for.” And then as an afterthought, “Man, are you on pills again!”

And now I felt an undeniable urge to run back to the department, pull the note off Saville’s monitor and give her the message myself. I took off immediately.

“Where’re you going Romeo?” He asked me, giving me a name that would stick to me like a leech for the next year or so until I quit work.

I smiled and said, “To convey a message, and I’ll be damned if you have a problem with that.”

“Hands off Romeo, but she’s the type that would suck all the blood from your body…”

“… and leave you lying thirsty on the hot desert sand with vultures hovering above.” I completed for him. This was something that Raza would say. I scoffed at it then, but now as I sometimes lie on the bed (which does feel like hot desert sand), with my body devoid of blood and reflect, I can feel the truth in his words dance naked around me and all I do is fish another cigarette from the never-ending cluster and light it.

“And since when did vampires start to come out in daylight?” I asked with my back towards him and as I started to walk towards the department door.

“Since Frost!” He was always good with replies, I wonder what he said when the grim reaper knocked on his car window in November.

I entered the room expecting everyone to point at me and laugh, but it didn’t happen and thankfully so. No one laughed but I could feel waywardness in the air, its presence like that of vapors. I pretended as if nothing had happened, as if just moments ago I had not choked on my own lust and as if I had not been hit by a huge trawler. Everything was the way it should be. Now my eyes were frantically searching for her, Saville’s desk wasn’t within eyeshot yet therefore I took a few long strides to get a view quickly. She wasn’t there and I sighed in aggravation.

“Looking for trouble?” Babar said in his all knowing tone.

“Not as much as I’m looking for the new intern.” I replied, my eyes still searching.

“I thought the two were synonymous.” He smiled.

I turned, faced him and said, “What is your problem? Moments ago Raza was full of his impending doom crap and now you. What is the scene here Babar?” I was smiling all along, but not very comfortable with the idea of a second person having similar regards.

“Nothing yaar, it’s just that she’s as beautiful as the devil herself and the devil is trouble.”

“So now you think the devil has a vagina?”

“Yeah, so?” He said this as he filed some papers away.

“And why didn’t I see her when she first joined?” That was, in principle, a question to myself.

“Today’s officially her joining day, she was here for a little while yesterday that is when Saville introduced her to most of us, you had left. And today you missed her by coming a little late, she had already left for HR.”

“My, my… somebody’s in the mood for stalking someone down!” Just as I ended that sentence, there she was. Never in all the years since puberty had I felt such a strong urge and a desire, never had my instincts kicked this violently. And now just by looking at her I felt powerless and weak. She was standing alongside Saville’s desk, dressed in a lime green shalwar kameez that complimented her heavenly contours. The shalwar had slits on its bottom and her leather sandals took away all the strength away from my feet and instead of sitting I resorted to something I always resort to, no matter what the need, cigarette. I lit it and walked towards my cubicle, trying not to stare. Somebody said something, I think it was “dead man walking” but I didn’t pay attention, I kept walking. Suddenly somebody called out my name. It was Saville. I did not know what to feel and that very moment my stomach was full of cool metallic taps.

“Yeah?” I tried to hide the exhilaration that was dripping from every word that came out.

“Did you meet Sara?” I could feel the mischief in his voice, but ignored it.

“Who?”

“Sara, this lady here.” He pointed towards her and she smiled, all along she had her eyes roped into mine. I was getting dizzy. She gave a single, most peculiar nod.

“Hi, I believe we did meet at the door.” That is all I could come up with under this much pressure.
“Yes, and I believe you were trying to quit smoking?” Again she spoke in that velvety voice, full of glass.
“Excuse me?” I said frowning.
“Your cigarette was on the floor.” She explained. I didn’t say anything; I was simply too embarrassed by the fact that I didn’t understand the first time.

I reached Saville’s desk and she extended her hand, “You know the name already.”

“Indeed I do.” I took her hand into mine and shook it very gently. She smelled like Peach and sawdust, I had become absolutely numb. And before I could think it over I heard myself saying, “I’m enchanted.” And that moment the earth stopped revolving around the sun, the wretched clock ticked for the last time and my words were hanging in thin air, no cables attached ladies and gentlemen.

She laughed out loud and everyone turned to see, “ Are you?”
Saville winked and Raza who had just walked in took the cigarette from my left hand and he whispered, “Love, it’s only drinks for you from now on.”

We exchanged pleasantries and a few flirtatious looks and I informed her about her sister’s phone call and she aptly responded by saying she had read the note, and that was about all, for that hour. As time went by (one week) I mustered up enough strength and jay to ask her out and she said she would love to. The initial months were heaven and then the devil appeared. What followed can be chronicled in a fat, mean looking book titled, ‘Kamikaze: Of Nosedives and Other Crimes of Passion”.

I must now retire and make myself a drink and also call for some cigarettes. It seems like it’s going to be a long night now that the devil has been spoken of.