The Day the Work stood still
The fire emergency alarm suddenly blared interrupting all of us from our work."Shit,man...not another darn fire drill...", I exclaimed with consternation. Anyway...hoping to get a head start for lunch and also spend time with Vani...I ignored the pending work I had to do, locked the system and proceeded to join the steady stream of humanity moving out of the SDB. I tried to reach Vani on her cell...but she was out of reach. It was only when I reached the safety point that I realised, this wasn't the usual fire drill...it was the real thing...huge clouds of thick black smoke was billowing from our SDB...the largest on campus!!!
I tried to reach Vani again...but she wasn't answering. Panic grabbed me. I frantically started searching for her amongst the anxious on lookers. I met some of her friends and all they could say was that the last time they saw her...she was taking a rest-room break. I ran and told the fire fighters that there was someone trapped inside...but they said they'll look into it as there were several trapped inside. I couldn't stand there idle while Vani was possibly helpless inside. I took the gamble and slowly made my way inside while the guards weren't looking.
I rushed to the 1st floor where Vanis cubicle was situated. I started calling out her name loudly as I made my way to the rest room. It was locked and I could hear her shouting for help. I broke the door down and she ran into my arms. "The door got jammed,Anu, and I couldn't get out!!! I was starting to suffocate here...",she said with tears running down her cheeks!!! "Don't worry...I'll get you out of here",I said and we both began to make our way towards the emergency exit...when we heard someone running.
It was someone working in the same wing and as we looked on...he made his way to the facilities room and started dragging out something. It was a rather large container of blue liquid with some complicated circuitry
attached to it.
"Oh my god its a bomb,Vani...you stay here!!!". This guy had somehow smuggled a bomb inside and was about to set it off. He must have even started the fire...I thought to myself as I slowly walked towards him.
He was really nervous. I couldn't find anything to attack him with. Necessity is the mother of invention...and I slowly removed the monitor from a PC...raised it high over my head and brought it down on the unsuspecting fellow. He slumped down unconscious. I was just turning my attention towards the circuitry when I heard movement behind me and I felt a knife stuck into me. It was Vani!!!But it wasn't the Vani I had fallen in love with...in her place stood a maniacal woman with her eyes red.
Survival instinct took hold of me and I caught hold of her neck and started squeezing. She put up a fight, but I was upto the task and after a while...she lay unconscious at my feet. My energy was fast leaving me...I was loosing blood. I dragged both of them towards the window and pushed a huge desk at it...breaking the window. With my last ounce of strength...I caught hold of Vani and the guy and jumped out. The lush grass broke our fall. I could sense the security running towards us. "Bomb...first floor...Vani...a terrorist!!!",I managed to gasp before everything went dark.
I came to know much later that Vani had spent nearly a month smuggling the blue liquid explosive in her "Gatorade" bottle. The circuitry was smuggled in, part by part, inside her IPod. On that day, she had brought in a 6 pack of beer all containing smoke bombs inside. She deployed them, causing the smoke and the alarm to go off.The bomb would have already gone off had she not been trapped inside the rest-room.The guy I had attacked, his name was Suresh, had found the bomb first and had tried to get help. He was trying to disarm it when I had struck him.
However all these realizations didn't succeed in soothing the mental scars I had sustained. I had fallen so hopelessly in love with the wrong person. The management commented me on the role I had played in thwarting that catastrophe...but it didn't have the desired effect. I had lost a huge portion from inside me...a void had been created...that day the work stood still!!!
I tried to reach Vani again...but she wasn't answering. Panic grabbed me. I frantically started searching for her amongst the anxious on lookers. I met some of her friends and all they could say was that the last time they saw her...she was taking a rest-room break. I ran and told the fire fighters that there was someone trapped inside...but they said they'll look into it as there were several trapped inside. I couldn't stand there idle while Vani was possibly helpless inside. I took the gamble and slowly made my way inside while the guards weren't looking.
I rushed to the 1st floor where Vanis cubicle was situated. I started calling out her name loudly as I made my way to the rest room. It was locked and I could hear her shouting for help. I broke the door down and she ran into my arms. "The door got jammed,Anu, and I couldn't get out!!! I was starting to suffocate here...",she said with tears running down her cheeks!!! "Don't worry...I'll get you out of here",I said and we both began to make our way towards the emergency exit...when we heard someone running.
It was someone working in the same wing and as we looked on...he made his way to the facilities room and started dragging out something. It was a rather large container of blue liquid with some complicated circuitry
attached to it.
"Oh my god its a bomb,Vani...you stay here!!!". This guy had somehow smuggled a bomb inside and was about to set it off. He must have even started the fire...I thought to myself as I slowly walked towards him.
He was really nervous. I couldn't find anything to attack him with. Necessity is the mother of invention...and I slowly removed the monitor from a PC...raised it high over my head and brought it down on the unsuspecting fellow. He slumped down unconscious. I was just turning my attention towards the circuitry when I heard movement behind me and I felt a knife stuck into me. It was Vani!!!But it wasn't the Vani I had fallen in love with...in her place stood a maniacal woman with her eyes red.
Survival instinct took hold of me and I caught hold of her neck and started squeezing. She put up a fight, but I was upto the task and after a while...she lay unconscious at my feet. My energy was fast leaving me...I was loosing blood. I dragged both of them towards the window and pushed a huge desk at it...breaking the window. With my last ounce of strength...I caught hold of Vani and the guy and jumped out. The lush grass broke our fall. I could sense the security running towards us. "Bomb...first floor...Vani...a terrorist!!!",I managed to gasp before everything went dark.
I came to know much later that Vani had spent nearly a month smuggling the blue liquid explosive in her "Gatorade" bottle. The circuitry was smuggled in, part by part, inside her IPod. On that day, she had brought in a 6 pack of beer all containing smoke bombs inside. She deployed them, causing the smoke and the alarm to go off.The bomb would have already gone off had she not been trapped inside the rest-room.The guy I had attacked, his name was Suresh, had found the bomb first and had tried to get help. He was trying to disarm it when I had struck him.
However all these realizations didn't succeed in soothing the mental scars I had sustained. I had fallen so hopelessly in love with the wrong person. The management commented me on the role I had played in thwarting that catastrophe...but it didn't have the desired effect. I had lost a huge portion from inside me...a void had been created...that day the work stood still!!!
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