That Fateful Night

Aisha picked up her bags and slammed her laptop shut as she happily waltzed out of her office. Waiting by the elevator, she kept jabbing at the buttons impatiently. 'Stupid Elevator. Stupid office', she thought to herself.

'In a hurry, are we?' asked her colleague and office 'playboy' Nihal. 'Yes Nihal, I just killed somebody and I'm escaping to avoid getting caught.' she answered,rolling her eyes, continuing to jab at the elevator button.

'You're pathetic Aisha.'

'IT'S A FRIDAY NIGHT NIHAL! OFCOURSE I'M IN A HURRY! and besides, you asked a stupid question to which you got a stupid answer.'

'Ooooh, Friday night is date night eh? Where is your loverboy taking you tonight? McDonalds?' sniggered Nihal. Aisha threw him a dirty look which didn't last long since the elevator she had been impatiently waiting for had finally stopped on their floor.

'So where you heading tonight then? Girls night out?' questioned Nihal as they walked out of the elevator and into their office parking lot.

'Oh for pete's sake, BUGGER OFF Nihal! You're not my father' 'Hey, it was just a considerate question. Anyway, have fun over the weekend, Ms. Forever Alone' said Nihal with a smirk.

Aisha increased the volume of her car stereo while zooming out of the parking lot. 'Stupid Nihal and his stupid thoughts. Stupid Stupid Nihal. Arrgh. God I need a drink!' she thought out loud, suddenly realising she was talking to herself.

Aisha reached her favourite pub, and much to her dismay, she saw Nihal's car parked there as well. Even worse was when she walked in hoping her girlfriends would already be there, but instead saw a whole bunch of folks from the business centre where their office was located in.

She reached the bar and ordered herself a drink,scanning the crowd hoping nobody from work would come sit and do the the stupidest thing corporate slaves did. Discuss more work.

'Crap, the entire legal team is here. Ha! There goes Nihal, at his usual playboy behaviour again. Silly goose.' she thought to herself, while letting her shoes drop and sipping on her drink. She sent out a few "Where the hell are you?" texts to her friday night drinking buddies Amaya and Tanya

'Aww, is loverboy checking on you?' she froze as she heard Nihal's voice from behind her. 'None of YOUR petty business, is it now?' retorted Aisha, mad at herself for not having ignored Nihal's taunts.

'Well, you could come join all of us upstairs or stay here and enjoy the sympathetic looks from your other colleagues.'

'Thanks, but I'm waiting for a few people. And besides don't you have business to take care of?' she questioned him while pointing at the girls waiting for Nihal.

 'Oh alright! Suit yourself.' said Nihal walking away from her.

She checked her mobile, hoping for an update from either of her friends. Zilch. She led out a loud sigh, sipping on her drink, not realising she had finished her drink and was slurping on the melted ice water in her glass.

'Here, have this.' she heard an alien voice speak and saw a glass full of her favourite poison get placed in front of her. She turned to her side. There stood the new entrant to office, Ariv. 'Err, thanks, but..' she looked at her empty glass being taken away by the bartender and felt embarassed.

'Thanks.', she muttered. Well done Aisha. Well done, she thought to herself. 'I'm Aisha, I work on the ....'  '.....8th floor, Risk Advisory team, Diamond Business Park.' replied Ariv completing her sentence for her.

'Yes!' smiled Aisha sheepishly, 'hey! are you stalking me?' questioned Aisha. 'No.' replied Ariv. 'It's always good to know about your colleagues. Specially the pretty ones.' winked Ariv.

'Cheesy line. BUT HE APPROACHED FIRST!' Aisha looked dreamily at Ariv while her head & heart engaged themselves in a debate.

Aisha was lost in conversation with Ariv and didn't realise how suitably tipsy she was after a few drinks down. She jumped off the bar stool and while putting her glass of L.I.I.T down, she picked up her bag and asked Ariv. 'Do you want to get out of here?' 'Grab dinner maybe?' 'Go on a drive?' 'watch a movie' Aisha threw options at Ariv like bullets keen on hitting the target. 'Slow down woman. What do YOU want to do?'

In her happy high state, Aisha blurted out excitedly 'LET'S GET OUR TONGUES PIERCED!'

'YES! Let us do that!', replied an equally happy high Ariv.

'NO! LET'S GET TATTOOS!'

'Errrr, are you sure Aisha?'

'YES! YES!' replied Aisha in her drunken excited high pitched voice.

Clumsily holding onto each other, they stumbled into the parking lot. Aisha heard her phone ring while Ariv got into the driver's seat. She saw Tanya's name flash on the phone. 'TANYAAAAA! I'M GETTING A TATTOO!'  'TANYAA! TANYA? Hello? Tanya?' she stared at her phone and realised her phone was out of battery.

******

Aisha entered the lift the next morning. It was a tiring Friday night, but she did have fun. She was still hungover, and could barely recall what had occurred the night before. Although, she did remember having more than her usual quota of 3 L.I.I.T's and talking to the new entrant in office, Ariv. Once again, she floated into dreamland, while her head and heart battled out the pro's and con's of dating a colleague. 'Madamji, your floor has come.' she heard the elevator operator say, and was snapped out of la la land.

'Hi Aiiishaa.' 'Had a fun weekend Aisha?' 'Too busy to come up and join us at the pub huh Aisha?'

She hurriedly ran to her workstation, smiling at her colleagues who were shooting questions at her.

Weird, thought Aisha. What's up with these people.

'Hey Aisha, what's up? Had fun last night?'

'None of your business Nihal.'

'Oooh. None of your business Nihal.' said Nihal, mimicking Aisha and walking away from her.

She heard loud laughter from the adjoining bay. She stood up, a lot of people on the floor were laughing really loudly. She tried to get a glimpse of her co-worker's laptop screen. She noticed an image.

'Hey Aditi, share the joke with me as well na.'

'Oh. Aisha you haven't been copied on this email?' said Aditi while trying to stop herself from laughing. 'Err No, I haven't got this funny email yet.'

'Oh...err..hold on.'

Aditi stood up in their bay and screamed 'Hey guys! Aisha hasn't got this email yet, should I forward it to her?' ending her sentence by going into a laughing fit.

*ping* her laptop notification popped up indicating a new email. Aisha opened the email to see the image of somebody's entire leg tattooed with pictures of what seemed to her looked like characters from Sesame Street. She had seen that tattoo before! If only she could remember where.

She suddenly saw Ariv walking towards her and that's when it all came back to her. The memories flooded her mind and that's when she regretted what had happened that fateful night.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.