It was hard that morning. It was a rather dark morning with some cloud cover. Etul had walked to work from his place. His living quarters were not very far from the office where he worked. It was a distance which was covered easily by walking. Etul reached the office building and stopped. From the place where he had stopped, the building entrance, he looked up, and above him, long distance away, was the top of his office building. The top was far away. Etul looked down. He looked at the ground, which felt dark. He then looked ahead and walked inside. Inside, it was some light. The light was not too bright, in fact, it tended towards being a little dim, mild effect of the lights inside. Etul looked at it and moved on. The office lobby was not without anybody. There were some people in the reception desk area, and, there were some people walking towards and away from the elevator. There were still some more people, waiting in the lobby. It was as usual. Etul did not want to look at anyone right then, so, he moved past all of them, towards the elevator. The elevators were some distance away, some people were already waiting there, Etul could see that. ‘Oh, no, it is going to be some waiting’. There were more people there, Etul would have to wait there, until the people who came before him would get cleared. It was going to be some time. Etul did not like it. He waited. People in front of him were mostly quiet. ‘It feels a little eerie, it always does, here, at this time, I don’t know why. May be something happened here, which nobody knows about. It could be something very sinister, like a murder. The happening of which still lingers here. I have read stories, and have imagined feelings like this’. He looked around. ‘I hope the elevator comes soon’.

The elevator arrived soon and Etul was on it. The elevator rode straight up, it did so slowly. It was as if the elevator sensed the eerieness of the place. ‘It is as if the elevator knows’. Etul thought and then kept quiet. The elevator stopped at a couple of floors and finally opened the doors for Etul on the floor number 21. The elevator panel read the number 21. Etul exited the elevator and did not look back. He walked towards his desk. But, he had to look back, he looked back, and saw the elevator doors, closing, with half a foot of gap between them, Etul could see the people remaining in there, 2 faces showed, the doors pushed closer together, it felt as if the people in there were screaming, then, the doors closed. Etul looked ahead. ‘There is nothing I can do’. He thought and walked, towards his desk, suddenly heavy. He reached the desk and put down his bag on the desk. He was in no mood to start working, he never was, usually, in the morning. He put down his bag and turned to go towards the coffee machine. The coffee machine was in the corner of the floor. He walked and reached it. There was no one there.

Etul pressed the necessary buttons on the machine and waited. The machine started and made some sounds, Etul was no stranger to those sounds. The sounds stopped and a beep could be heard. Etul reached for the coffee cup, careful not to pick it up by the middle part, the machine always gave out very hot coffee, he had learnt the hard way on the first day of his job there. He had to carry coffee on his shirt all day. Etul picked up the cup by its rim and walked back to his desk. He was careful, he was careful not to slam into anybody on his way to his desk. The coffee was very hot in the cup.

Etul successfully walked back with the coffee in his hand. He sat down. Then, he turned on his computer monitor. It came on, with the usual login screen. In a well trained fashion, Etul entered the password and went on. He clicked the email software icon twice. The software came up on the screen. He immediately saw and opened the email from his colleague. ‘No way, this is going to be a bad day. I would have to fix it today. The internal monitoring site is down. I would have to get on to it. Before, the boss notices, I would have to fix it’. Etul took a sip from the cup of coffee. ‘Thanks a lot, I’ll look into it’, he emailed back to the sender, Sera.