The recession song!

Swipe your card at nine in the morn,
Rush to the monitor and do switch it on,
Even work on a file that is already complete
But don’t make it seem you are idle at your seat
Cut down your smoke breaks to five, maybe six
Double the number of your brownie point ticks
When a friend comes to chat do shoo him away
For he won’t pay you on the salary day
Gtalk was good when there was no firing
But now close the window, coz no one’s even hiring
Don’t let the pink slips land on your table
Pretend you’re good, the best and the able
Stick by the rules and you may beat recession
Or else there’s no go, but to join the procession

A suicide that went wrong.

“Aaaaargh!!! You just punctured my eye you rotten little drunk,” screamed Cyclops, the old dartboard at the pub. “I guess they will only realise my pain when I bleed. Agnostic infidels. I think I might as well just hang myself to death. Oh, I already am hanging. Somebody tighten the noose for god’s sake!” Silence. Snap. “Oops, the wrong head. Sorry nail.”

Unfortunately, everyone's turn will come...

It was the last I would see of him. Like the others before him who had fallen prey to cruel fate, he could do nothing about it. Neither could I. All I could do was pray. Pray for the bloodshed to stop. Saving the lives of the rest of us. If only for the time being.

Giant minutes passed. Walls echoed our heavy breathing. With fear and loathing in my eyes, I turned towards my tormentor. There was God! The prayers were heard! My unfortunate friend would be the last of us to die the bloody death. There would be no more blood.

A cold winter breeze swept across the room. I lay back and let it make love to me. Death had made me a little more adventurous. A little giggle escaped my clutches. Peace was restored. And then… he sneezed. It was my turn. A prayer escaped me as he pulled me out of the box – “Please, my lord. Never a tissue paper again.”

The girl who stared on and on...

I looked again, through the corner of my hopeful eye. No. I wasn’t mistaken. She was indeed staring at me.

Wow. I might not be the ravishing hunk around, but yeah, I wasn’t the ugliest one around either. I remember, once there was this girl called Lily who said that I was cute. And then there was Riya; well, she did not exactly say anything. Then who was it? Whatever. Forget it. But this was different. She was too damn hot to pay me this kind of attention; or any kind of attention for that matter. She didn't even blink.

I looked over my shoulder, just to make sure. No. There was no one else in her line of sight. I jumped in my chair, without actually getting the elevation. I sighed, and flung a cheeky glance in her direction. She was still at it. I turned my monitor around a little bit and typed furiously.

While alphabets, not words, populated my MS Word page, my mind was craving to wander beyond the screen and around it. “Will she still be looking at me,” I wondered. As if in answer, a large plastic ball whizzed past my ear and bounced back off my soft board. Oh yes, a large chunk of the future of Indian cricket worked in my office. Apologies with the conviction of a politician’s promise followed. With a wry smile I threw the ball back.

Without even a glance in her direction, my nervous fingers attacked the keyboard. “Why didn’t you look at her you idiot,” cursed my heart. I felt stupid. The diehard romantic in me woke up. There was no way I was going to let this opportunity pass me by. I threw my hands up in the air, and leaned back, as if to stretch. She was gone! Aaaaaaaaaarrrgghh! My head dropped on the keyboard with a thud. A few random alphabets scattered across the monitor. For all I knew, if rearranged, they might have read ‘ASSHOLE’.

With tremendous effort, I slowly raised my head, turned in her direction. Whoa! There she was. My joy was beyond compare. She was lying, face down, on my table. It must have been that wretched ball. “Hooligans,” I thought. I slowly picked her up and put her straight with one hand. With the other, I pushed the drawing pin right through her hair. My pinup girl wasn’t going down again.

8 lines about her...

The might of the pen she wrongly uses,

to paint a picture, an image that induces,

a portrait of her that brims with lies,

one that laughs more often than it cries.

Tales of hearts those were ruthlessly broken,

And stories of betrayed men were carelessly spoken;

only the one blessed to hear more than the said,

could hear the muffled cries as she constantly bled.