Death of a Salesman

 

Every Whatsapp ping beat upon Manoj’s head like a hailstone. And for him, every hailstone was the size of a meteor that caused the dinosaurs to go extinct. "Let me fucking finish my drink in peace", he muttered to himself. So what if he was supposed to be at his desk? So what if he was drinking on the terrace instead of attending his first deliverable meeting? So what if he had not completed his work, and that the client was going to escalate the issue? His mother had died yesterday, he could finish one drink in peace. He was entitled to that much at least, he surmised.

Manoj?
Where r u Manoj?
Manoj the mtng has started...
Manoj can u at least send the completed file?
Manoj, Santosh is asking for you! You had personally vouched to deliver...
Fucking MANOJ WER AREU
BLOODY PICK UP MANOJ
??????????

Ashwini’s messages went unanswered as she entered Ishita’s cabin.

Her boss took one look at her face and stood up, and asked her to call the client again. Firefighting for Manoj had become an unwelcome addition to her daily task list. When was she going to run this company then?

"Hi Santosh! Ashwini said you faced an issue today…"

-

It was 12 now. The meeting must have ended, time for another – last peg. Just as he was pouring, the terrace door opened and Rahul entered. Their eyes met, his own burst into tears. They hugged.

"Shhh. Shhh. I’m here. You need to go back home. Aniket bhaiyya called. Why did you even come for work today? I’ll take care of everything, talk to Ashwini and Ishita. You go home. Here, have some Kashmiri Meetha." Aniket removed a few sachets from his rolling material pouch. "Your bag?"

"Didn’t get."

"Oh good, go straight down. Don’t enter the office again. Do you want me to drop you?"

"No no. I think they will need you. The creatives still need copy. They’ll put you on it now. Cheers!" Manoj downed the peg.

"Arre chu- rehnde. Go now."

Rahul sighed. When he had prayed for Manoj to get distracted so that he is thrown off this latest pitch, he had expected God to do something like make him oversleep. Or some stupid mistake. In no universe had he expected a rival-incited Godly matricide. But God works in strange ways. If a mother had to die for his success, he had to make good use of such a tragic occurrence. He picked up the glass.

-

"I found Manoj."

Ashwini and Ishita looked at him. And then at the glass.

"His condition was such that I thought it best to send him home." Rahul placed the whiskey glass on the glass table top. The clink sounded sounded a death knell.

"What the fuck? He has begun drinking in the morning? In the office? On a delivery day." Ashwini screamed and her fiery eyes, magnified by her spectacles, and now framed by haggered, wild, curly hair, shot fury at her CEO.

"Ashwini, calm down. I’ll look into it. For now, he is off the pitch. Rahul, would you be willing to take over? I am sorry, I know this is last minute, but you- you know we have no option."

"Yes. Okay. I will have some copy drafts ready by the evening. Can you talk to the other account servicing peeps."

"I will. Ashwini, add Rahul to all the Gravity groups… What was that?"

Something big swept pass Ishita’s cabin windows. They looked down at a collection of crumpled clothes that seemed oddly arranged on a leaking red mass.

Everybody rushed down. The lifts, stairs, were jammed. A crowd had gathered.

Ishita, Ashwini, and Rahul pushed through the crowd to gain access to a line of sight. There lay Manoj. On his white shirt, in blue ink:

Gravity Sportswear. The Fall Collection.