It’s April 10, 8am on a sunny Monday morning in Chennai.
⏰ Alarm rings.
Hari wakes up from a deep sleep, slowly reaching out to his phone to shut the alarm. A faint sound of morning prayers and bells seeps through his window. These nostalgic sounds always put him in a positive mood. Having grown up in a religious family in a small town, he loves the familiar sounds and smells in his small apartment community.
After a slow weekend, Hari is well rested and ready to head back to work. He gets up, goes about his daily ablutions. He showers, puts on a T-shirt and jeans, and heads into the kitchen to prepare some quick breakfast. Nowadays his breakfast has two roasted dosas with gun powder podi. Even though he would prefer some variety, he loves the convenience of quickly being able to make and have his breakfast in time for work.
He lights up the gas stove, puts the tawa on, takes the batter out of the fridge and sets his plate on the counter. In a few minutes, the tawa is hot. He takes a bit of water in his palm and splashes it on to the hot tawa. It makes a hissing sound, he seems to smile at that. Then he takes a dosa spoon, dips it into the batter, pours it onto the hot tawa. He moves the spoon in concentric circles to spread the batter thin. This repeating circular motion of the spoon is something he had mastered. He had learned to make, near perfect, circular dosa. He does this for the next one as well. Now he has two crispy, roasted hot dosas on his plate. He takes a spoon of gunpowder podi and pours some cooking oil on it. He takes his plate and sits on the couch, turns on the tv to watch news while he eats.
“Ah, dosa is life” he exclaims to himself as he finishes up his breakfast.
Next he prepares his bag, wears his shoes, picks up the keys to his moped and heads out. After riding for about 20 mins, he reaches his office. He parks his moped in his designated spot and walks up to the main door.
The simple glass door for the entrance has a couple of stripes on it. People passing by can can faintly see the reception facing the insides of the office away from the door. The two receptionists that are usually present at the counter were not yet here today. He pushes the front door to enter, it seems to be locked.
Hmm, that’s odd. Is nobody in today yet? He thinks.
He takes out his ID and swipes it at the keypad next to the door.
🚫 “Access denied!”
WTF!?
He swipes again. Same message. He seems a little confused, thoughts in his mind of whether it was a holiday he might have forgotten. He takes his phone out of the pocket and finds the number for Arun, his colleague and friend. He clicks on call.
“The number you have dialed does not exist”.
He tries again. Same message.
He frantically walks to the security gate at the entrance to seek their help. He finds Raju, the security in-charge.
“I work at Excellent Enterprises, somehow I’m not able to get in. Nobody seems to be at the reception either. Do you know what happened? Is there anyway you can help me enter?”
Raju seems a bit surprised because this is not a very common request. In such situations, employees reach out to the company’s security directly, and not to him. He was also surprised for another reason.
“Sir, there is no Excellent Enterprises here. Is this your first day at the company? I think you’ve come to the wrong place.”
Hari was now bewildered, sweat breaking out. Did his company just.. shut down? Did they relocate? Did they do that secretly behind the employees backs? And why was Arun’s phone not connecting? What is going on? He decides to wait at the entrance for some more time. After about 30 minutes, people start walking up to the office and entering. He recognizes none of them.
He stops a woman about to enter and asks “Is this the office for Excellent Enterprises?”.
“No, sorry, this is Ramesh and Manu Chartered Accounts”.
WTF?!
With his head now racing, he goes to his moped, starts it up and heads back home. He couldn’t be near the building anymore. He is riding his vehicle in panic now.
What is happening? What happened to my company? Am I losing my mind? How come I had the right ID card, went to the same office I’ve been going for the past 4 years, and now suddenly it isn’t there. Did I just wake up from a coma?
He parks his moped and walks up to his house. D block, 2nd floor, 201. He notices that the main door had a some decorations.
Where did that come from?
He enters his apartment, throws his bag and enters the kitchen and takes a big gulp of water. Then he notices in the sink, an empty glass with filter coffee stains.
“I don’t remember having coffee” he thinks.
Something has gone terribly wrong.
Then a ring at the door. It’s the newspaper. He opens the door, picks it up, and races through reading the headlines to get some sense of familiarity. Something to make him feel he’s not going insane. He notices lots of new names, lots of new events which have no link to happenings of the previous days.
Then he glances across the science section.
“Scientists say repetitive actions across realities can get linked”.
He reads further.
“Scientists in Europe have discovered that repetitive actions or activities across different realities can sometimes get linked. When repetitive actions happen in different worlds, at the exact same time, realities can get merged or mingled, they said. “
He drops the paper. Sits down on the couch and looks out the window for a long time, thinking if this is what happened to him. He gets up, walks into the kitchen, and looks at the tawa with bits of dosa stuck to it.
The End
No AI has been used in writing this short story. Like and share.
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