Chapter 6 - The Glass Eyes

The voices in the pantry had receded into the background. Just as the waves recede to the back of your mind, after a while at the seashore. Outside Maan’s office, it was a busy Mumbai city. Cars and buses raced against each other, even the bystanders were in a hurry. The sky was a clear blue and there was not a cloud in the sky. Well, what if there were clouds? Nobody would have noticed them anyways.

A dull drowsiness seeped into Maan’s veins, and he was about to nod off to sleep, when the phone on his desk leapt up like a serpent and began to ring.
“Hi, this is Maan.”
“Coffee?” It was Shila.
“Yes, but there’s a lot of people in the pantry and I could use some air. Wanna try the coffee shop outside?”
“Sure! See you outside in 5.”
Maan stretched his hands, and got up wearily from his seat. He forced a smile as he passed the people near the pantry and waved at Abhijeet who was wearing the “I know where you are going” smile. A few paces later he was at the elevator.

He didn’t notice him at first – the man near the elevator. The man stood there motionless, but Maan felt his presence like somebody had touched the back of neck. He turned around and saw this man. He was an average looking man. Slightly taller than Maan, of medium build and dark complexion. He was as composed as the walls behind – it felt like he had been standing there for ages. He had that strange, ironic smile. And then Maan saw his eyes. His glass eyes. What was it about his eyes?

The elevator doors opened and both got in. There were others in the elevator. Yet Maan kept looking at this man, and his glass eyes. At the ground floor, they all came out. He came out before Maan, and walked out without a word. And then a little while later as he was walking out the sliding doors, he looked back at Maan for an instant, before he vanished out of Maan’s view. It felt as though he had spoken. His glass eyes had spoken. Maan knew he would see those eyes again.

A while later at the coffee shop Maan and Shila were sipping coffee. Shila talked about different things. Different things like how she had gained a bit of weight and was very worried that she wouldn’t fit in her jeans anymore, her new friend Anamika who was stuck with some guy who didn’t care for her, her hair which was so thick and unmanageable, her trip to home this weekend and her boss who was the vilest, underwater creature on earth. It felt so nice, this light-hearted chatter – like bubbles from soap water. Now and then Maan would screw his eyebrows and say something funny, and they would both start laughing. But he was mostly silent today, and Shila knew this mood of his.
“Come on, what is it?” she asked.
Maan smiled at her and said, “What?”
“Ok so you quit your job because of her?”
“No. It’s not her. I miss her a lot but that’s not it.”
“What is it then?”
“It’s like an emptiness, a hollowness inside me. There is something I have to do, Shila. I can’t live like this anymore – everytime I look in the mirror I see a face, I hear a voice.”
“What voice?”
“At the elevator I saw a pair of eyes, that saw through me. Saw right through me, everything I had ever done. "
He suddenly stopped, almost choked with emotion. Then a smile spread over his face like a wave that washes away the footprints on the sand. He was in control again.
"It's just that I can’t live like this Shila, I have to go.”
“What, right now?” she said and smiled.
Maan glanced at his watch and with his twisted, impish smile said, “I guess I could stand your company for some more time!”
And they spoke about her sea-monster of a boss.