WORK HOURS

His table was a mess.

A stack of printouts he referred from, a stray handkerchief that should have been washed ages ago and the one he used now. The earphones lay jumbled up in a corner and a mostly empty pen stand with the pens randomly strewn on the table.

It was a table that he had repeatedly tried to clear up only for the situation to get back to where it was barely in a week or so. So now he had just given up.

When he sat up to work, the books and copies on the table would move to the bed, and when it was time to sleep, they will move back to the table. That was the pattern now, day in and day out. But that was something he was now designed to thrive in, dragging along with the barest of efforts, looking at the laptop screen day in and day out working away. Its screen brightly lit up almost for the entire time he was awake.

Sunlight on the skin? That was a sensation he no longer remembered. The lone window in his room looking out into more buildings outside was just what let him keep track of the time passing by and the sun setting or rising.

But none of it mattered, for it was him and his laptop. The click of his keys on the keyboard, as he typed away furiously on them meeting deadline after deadline, launching project after project, making money on top of money, that was the universe, everything else just noise.

When he went to sleep, when he got up from sleep, there was no fixed schedule. Human communication? That was an alien concept he had indulged in once upon a time. But now he was wiser, he did his work and earned his dough. The projects exciting and the promise of a future lucrative as hell. So, he typed away day in and day out.

Visitors, there were none. The deliveries were automated. A cleverly designed food drop box that let the guy drop in his food without ever disturbing him in work.

A few feet away from where he sat, near his bathroom door, lay stretched out a body, but who had time for that. His work was important; his work was exciting and that was all that mattered. He could check that later.

The police arrived a week or so after, when the delivery guy complained of a smell and the fact that he seemed to be unable to put packets into the delivery box. He had broken the one rule the guy inside had told him, by ringing his doorbell to check and had not received any response.

They broke down the door around noon, and the stench filled up the place. Near the bathroom door the dead body lay stretched out in a towel, there was no sign of attack, it was just a body collapsed. None of his neighbours had ever seen him, so no one could identify. Some digging around through the documents in the room had made the police sure that yes, it was indeed the same guy who lived there.

He was annoyed when the police officer turned off the light switch, but he was too busy to switch it back on for now. I will do it later, he thought. He could hear the noises coming from somewhere in the house but he didn’t bother checking, the work had to be done.

The forensics arrived a little later. Someone had informed the media, and they were there soon too. But they had to be content with staying away near the community gate, being forbidden to enter inside. His body was carried away a little before the evening, as one of the forensic guys, checked the overstuffed food drop box, with the food that had never been eaten, for some samples.

They sealed the door, drew an outline of where his body had been found dead, but he continued typing away on his laptop.

Well, the deadlines won’t be meeting themselves. The work had to be done; the money had to be made.

ASHWINI UDGATA AUGUST 24, 2025

Cover Photo- Yusuf Shamsudeen, Unsplash