Chapter 3: The Forgotten Intern

She doesn't know. She doesn't know that she was an accessory in a plot against me. And that I barely escaped from the clutches of death, or serious injury at the very least. "Do you have a box cutter or something to help me open this?"
She holds a package, slightly larger than an A4 sheet. The brown tape around the edges shows signs of damage, possibly from an earlier attempt at removal.
"It's covered in more tape than an Egyptian mummy," she says, flustered and restless.
"Hold on, let me check."
I look around for something sharp, but what office worker uses a cutter in 2024? Do we even have office supplies in this age? The only company-issued tool I know of is the laptop. Even the pantry offers nothing mightier than a fork.
"I've looked everywhere but I can't find anything," I tell her.
"Alright."
She digs her nails into the tape with all her might, but these are nails of a petite, twenty-something, bookworm that would struggle to hold a two-litre milk pot for long. They can't pierce the "industrial-grade," or whatever variety of brown tape that Bluedart uses. And I, instead of offering my nails in the service of my dear friend and co-worker, go completely against the very grain I'm made of, and pull out a pair of scissors from my bag.
"Okay! Stop. Use this." I say.
This isn't any ordinary pair. It is the same pair of scissors that Vanshika had held against my neck in the store room. I had been carrying them in my backpack since the incident, because for some inexplicable reason, holding on to them had felt like the safest option after snatching it from her. It was only while I was waiting for a cab that I realized I had been clutching it so hard that my fingers hurt, stuffed them in my bag, and directed all of my cognitive faculties towards forgetting about them. But we can get past that, can't we? And Pari doesn't need to know a thing. Vanshika, as much as senior management is letting on, is not coming back. And I'd rather have Pari use the scissors before she goes all feral trying to rip the tape apart. She points the blade towards the ceiling and cuts twice to test her new equipment, then points it towards the box.
"Sturdy," I bet she thinks to herself as she weighs the blades in her hands.
"Let me peel off the shipping label first." I say, taking the package from her.
"Let it be, I'm not going to need it or anything. Just hold the package in place." She runs the scissors from the farther end and closes the blades right against my chest, cutting through the label and the tape beneath it. The flaps come loose, and out comes another smaller box from the cardboard container. She makes quick work of unboxing. She chucks away the polystyrene bits, undoes the bubble-wrap and pulls out the latest generation iPad. I watch in awe as she peels off every sticker and protective sheet from the components without a care in the world.
"Let's take a selfie." She has switched on the device and already reached the camera.
"Don't forget to send it to me once you've set up the device."

...

I hear a buzz from the pocket of my denim trousers and pull out my phone just quick enough to catch Pari's name flash on the screen for a moment. My modest smile is no match for her perfect Colgate grin. Despite the iPads's best efforts to retouch my face, the circles under my eyes have become a shade darker. I should ask mum to prep a haldi-besan face pack for me. "No point worrying about that right now," I tell myself and put my phone away to focus on the larger screen, only for her to call me the next moment.
"Yes, I will have lunch with you Pari. See you down at the cafeteria in a few minutes," I sigh. Work will have to wait.
Locking my laptop, I turn to Naman who is staring at his. The screen in front of him is just as black and blank as his eyes except for a single pound symbol in the top left and a small rectangle after it. The rectangle blinks and moves back and forth as he types and backspaces over and over.
"Lunch?" I ask.
In the absence of the usual crew, who are out on a field trip for the entire week, he has been a reliable lunch partner.
"Can you wait for a bit? I need to figure out how to apply this new policy on all company laptops and it's just not working," he pleads despondently.
After a few minutes of scrolling through multiple browser tabs, he types something and an endless stream of meaningless characters, question marks, and diamonds is spewed on his screen.
"You should have yours without me. This is going to take a while," he says, scratching his hair, "Do you have someone with you?"
"Yeah, Pari."
"Who?"
"Hey, I introduced you last week!"
"No you didn't." The creases on his forehead rise and his eyes are even more blank than before.
"The girl who was here with the iPad?"
"Oh! Does she work with us? I just thought she was a random.... somebody," he shrugs.
He isn't one to forget a proper introduction, unless I had made it in my head.
"Yeah, no problem. I'll introduce you again. Catch you after lunch."

...

Pari sips the last of her drink violently, almost blowing the lid off the cup, then slams the empty cup on the table and stands up abruptly.
"I'm getting another one, you want something?"
Along with a new cup of coca-cola, she brings over a plate full of chocolate croissants. It clatters on the table as she puts it down. She gazes at the floor beside the table, and starts sipping from the new paper mug.
"What's up with you?"
"Nothing."
She picks a croissant and puts it on my plate.
"Louis was acting so weird today. I went to say hello and all and he totally brushed me off. It was like he didn't even know me."
She bites off half a croissant and speaks as she chews, "and then he went to have lunch with Natasha."
"Huh."
After finishing my lunch I help her with the croissants. She has clearly brought more than she can chew after filling her belly with soft drinks.
"I know just the thing to cheer you up," I say.
"What?" she asks with a faint glimmer of hope in her eyes and her pout is reduced to a slight smile.
"Foosball."
At the mention of her favourite pastime amongst the limited options in the building, her slight smile widens into a grin.
At the play table, we find two guys from marketing just about to start. We request them to join in and turn the game into a 2v2 men v women. Pari is aggressive right out of the gate. We take an early lead but the boys catch up to us quickly. Despite losing by five goals to three, a much more spirited and livelier Pari is first to call it quits when a meeting reminder buzzes on her phone.
"Who was she?" One of the marketing boys asks watching her walk away.
"Pari from the art department. She has been interning with us for quite a while now."
"She works with us?"
"Strange. You folks must have crossed paths before. You're marketing, right?"
"Yeah. But I haven't seen her before."
"Well, now you have."

...

The next day, Pari's shipping container is somehow back on my desk. The flaps are shut but barely held together as the tape holding them has been cut right from the middle. I shove it beneath the cabin desk for the time being, and walk to the pantry where Tanya is pouring coffee for herself.
"How's it going Radhika?" she asks.
"All good," I nod, "how are you?"
"I'm good."
She tears off a sachet of brown sugar over her cup and lets all the granules slide down. I pick a clean mug from the rack to my left. My fingerprints get stamped on the white mug with a mixture of brown and violet dust. The brown particles are usual coarse dust, but the violet is soft, dense, and almost glittery. I do not recall touching anything of that nature earlier during the day. The mug goes straight into the sink. On contact with water, the powder stings my fingertips like paresthesia, but washes away fairly quickly. Tanya, who has been watching me clean up, waits till I have a fresh empty mug in hand before continuing.
"I talked to the sales manager for Kaveri to get an idea around how they are feeling. Start a thread with them around tracking more metrics and loop me in. Let's be very clear about what metrics we're going to use as performance indicators for them."
"Okay."
"We're delivering the results, let's make sure that we have the right numbers to back that up," she says while stirring her coffee.
"Alright. What else?" She asks.
"Umm... They have asked for some changes to the designs. These were... committed by Vanishka."
She stops stirring and places her hand on the counter. A rectangular Cartier watch slides out from beneath the cuff of her shirt. The hands show forty-five past ten, pointing to the Roman numerals printed in black on the white dial. Her gaze shifts from one of reception to consternation to disapproval as she contemplates the impact of this decision.
"Vanshika is not keeping well. We will have to manage without her for a while. In any case, we shouldn't be entertaining such requests at this stage. Tag me in the request, I'll handle it."
"Alright." I nod.
She picks up her cup and looks into a distance for a few seconds, then shifts her gaze to the sink momentarily. The Cartier has disappeared beneath the cuff again.
"Alright," she echoes back my response, and walks away.

...

With Tanya gone I come back to my desk with a cup of mocha. It's a slow day at the office, apart from having to endure another day of my feet hitting the shipping box every time I stretch my legs or move my feet around. But the misery is short-lived as Pari calls me to her aid once again.
"Radhika? Thank heavens you picked up! My keycard isn't working. Can you come and help me?"
"Alright. Where are you?"
"Just outside the main entrance."
"Okay. Wait right there. I'll be there in a minute."
After tapping my card at the entrance and letting her in, we hunt down the building staff for answers.
"Can you spell your name for me?"
"P-A-R-I-N-E-E-T-A"
She alternates between scratching her arm, and her neck while spelling her name. Her voice is high-pitched, but feeble.
"And you're a current employee?" The staff inquires a whole two minutes after her name was entered. A time span in which Pari has checked her phone six times.
"Yes," she sighs.
"I can't see your card in our system."
"I was able to use it till this morning." she appeals.
"Just check with your IT manager. They should be able to re-register you."
And here I thought it would just be a case of the card getting demagnetized due to her phone being in its proximity.
"Do we know someone from IT? They're all on the second floor, aren't they?" She paces forward with quick, short steps. I chase her down before she can get far, and stop her.
"I know someone better."
Naman would be more sensitive to the urgency of the matter than anyone else in the whole IT department. It's time for the re-introduction I promised.
"Your employment records have been corrupted," he sighs.
"Okay..." Pari responds.
"Let's just go over your main employee records once. I will ask my team to fix this and get you a new card."
I seat her down in my chair as she helps Naman verify the records. After a while, her cheeks turn back to their usual color, and I step away to fetch some water.
The janitor stands near the sink in the pantry. He pours a drain cleaner in the sink and runs water over it.
I go to him and inquire why the box beneath my desk hasn't been thrown away.
"What box?" he asks.
"Brown shipping box, near the dustbin beneath my desk."
"Boxes are cleared everyday."
I tell him that this one wasn't.
"Aah... you people order something every day. It will be cleared during the evening sweep."

As I leave him alone and walk out, the rabbit appears, seemingly out of nowhere, and hops onto the chair next to Pari, who, preoccupied with her own predicament does not notice the rolling chair next to her move. I walk to my desk quietly and stand between them pretending to look for some documents in my bag. The rabit remains in its usual posture, lounging on the chair, unfazed by my proximity. An unboxing video is just about to start on a laptop on the adjacent desk. I quickly press the mute button before it starts. The rabbit groans in disapproval. His frame barely crosses the arms of the chair but his ears stand straight, all the way to the headrest. Should I just pick it up? It looks at me momentarily then shifts to the screen, where a slick, young college-grad is unboxing an iPad. I hold the armrest and give the chair a shake to shoo the rabbit away. It leaps right onto the edge of the laptop screen, which closes with a bam, hops over to the opposite desk and disappears. The lid catches Pari's attention but she's oblivious to the rabbit. When she's done with Naman, we call it day. I step into another world as I exit the building. Cool air blows into my hair, carrying an intoxicating whiff of steamed dumplings along with it. A copper bell swings inside an ice-cream cart as it is pulled by a man in a buzzcut wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. He sounds the bell from a distance as a couple clicks a photo of their matching Starbucks' cups and the last remnants of sunlight linger in the sky overhead. I cross the service lane and hail an auto-rickshaw. The ride to the metro station is rough. The driver zooms past the Ubers and the Olas catching all free lefts and green lights on the way. Cool breeze turns into a gust of warm smoke as we pass a convoy of trucks, which turns into a cough-inducing blast of dust as we road runs parallel to a barren field. I pull out a dupatta from my bag and wrap it around my face. The auto-rickshaw stops right outside the metro station entrance. The driver kills the engine triumphantly. I hand him a fifty rupee note and take off my dupatta which is desperately in need of washing. I have been wearing it this commute for many days now. The fabric is wrinkled and has lost its sheen. You could almost feel the dust when you touch it. The yellow color has dulled and the red-blue floral pattern has violet stains on it. Where did the violet come from? I throw it in the laundry basket when I get home and empty my bag over my bed. The scissors bounce and fall to the ground. The blades have turned from lustrous steel to solid charcoal with tiny violet circles along the sharp inside edges. The handle is too heavy to lift with just the thumb and index finger. I lift it with both hands to examine it. Violet circles move along the inside edges crashing into one another with a faint glow. The dark charcoal blade is warm to touch when I trace my finger across it, but instinct prevents me from venturing towards the inside edge. Another chill runs down my spine. Vanshika wasn't just planning to threaten me with bodily harm, she was prepared to do much worse.

The ground floor lobby is uncharacteristically noisy between the hours of nine and ten. A chair pulled here, a charger plugged in there, with the coffee machine purring incessantly in the background as people came in and set up for the day ahead. Within an hour, most people would be done with the morning greetings, donned their headphones and put their phones on silent, and this place would be as calm as a library.
Pari is sitting on a sofa with her laptop on her knees. She is wearing a cream, silk top with a long black skirt and matching wedges. Her black fitness band has been replaced with a sleek, silver bangle.
"Someone is looking good today."
"Yeah, I'm meeting a client," she smiles nervously.
"First time?" I ask.
"Yeah. And I've already lost the meeting agenda document," she sighs, "I'll have to ask Louis to send it again."
"Lost it how?"
"It was on my cloud drive. Now it's not." She looks down and scratches her eyebrows. That happens sometimes, I lie. It never does.

The box isn't beneath my desk anymore. The janitor's den is located at the far end of the hallway to the left of my workstation. It's a tiny room, with an old plastic chair and a stool right next to the door, with an overwhelming stench of cleaning acid. Bottles of floor cleaning liquid are stashed in a corner, and a ragged, brown mop hangs from a broom resting against the wall. This was no den but a closet. From its condition it was evident that no one had sat on the chair for ages. It only had three and a half legs. Moreover, if a person were inside, it would be impossible to open the door without hitting them. Leaving the den, I look for him throughout the floor. When I spot him, I inquire if he had taken the box away.
Affirmative.
"Can I have it back?" I ask.
Absolutely not, it's gone.
I insist that it is "really important," and that I have "missed something."
He tells me that the box is in the dumpster near the stairwell in the basement parking area. He could take me there in the evening, but not before. Pari may not have till evening.

Total darkness engulfs me. There's no sound to be heard other than my footsteps. Last time, Vanshika's shadow was looming over me when I had descended these stairs to meet Varun. Today, it's the threat of a friend being forgotten by her colleagues. My mother would be fuming if I had done what Pari had. She would scold me for crossing out my name, or cutting photographs.
A tall stack of shipping boxes stands adjacent to the dumpster at the bottom of the stairwell. Pari's is near the top. I pull it out, grateful that I don't have to open the dumpster. Who knows how long I could hold my breath if it had come to that. My suspicion turns out to be true. Pari had cut right between her name and work address with a pair of magical scissors. Luckily, shipping boxes are covered in copious amounts of tape, and I have a whole stack of them. I peel off a few inches of tape and stick the pieces of Pari's violet stained shipping label back together. It's a shot in the dark. Mother never mentioned how to undo the damages after all.
Back on the ground floor, the coffee machine looks especially inviting. I pour myself a cup, remembering to wash my hands first. The violet is almost contagious. I pour another for Pari who is sitting right where I left her. She accepts it graciously.
"Doc appeared again. A glitch in the cloud service perhaps."