Force of Habit
A short inspired by ‘Lunchbox’, a movie by Irrfan Khan.
I wake up every morning to the same thing. The ‘thing’ being the absence of anything. Everything. Nothing.
I wake up every morning to a vacant room. With a vacant mind. Hoping to float through another day. Lifeless in this vibrant body of mine, dull in this vivacious brain.
The same routine — slippers, walk, stretch, stop, stare, pet the cat, walk, rinse the mug, make coffee. The familiar whirr of the coffee maker, one of the few things I was increasingly growing fond of. One mini-packet of milk to go with it, two half-heaps of sugar from that one spoon that was slightly burnt around the curve and bent around the handle, in the faded blue mug with the creamy polka dots. One sip to start off with, a pause for five minutes while the coffee cools down, and then five more sips. Another wait of two minutes, finish the drink. Empty the blue mug, fill it with water and leave it there on the counter. No matter how much time I have in the morning, the routine rumba does not allow me to wash the mug. Not yet. It isn’t time.
Dress up, go to work.
Some call me a freak, they don’t understand what it is like to have a routine. To have habits. Habits don’t just stop there, you know. You don’t just do the same thing over and over again, every day of your life, and have it remain just a “habit”. Habits become principles. These were my principles, they forced me to live my life, and I was content with it.
At work, I usually pass four cubicles before I reach my own. I reach my office at 8:55 AM sharp; the walk to my cubicle takes me five minutes. I pass three people, one in each cubicle save the one that is vacant for now. I don’t know their names yet, I never bothered to find out, but I know what they do. To the first one, I always give a smile and a nod, keep it classic. He gives me a wary half-smile in return. To the second person, I offer a little wave, more ostentatious than you would expect. He ignores me completely. To the third, a playful eye roll and a smirk — as if she is in on my little secret, as if she is special. I never actually pause to gauge how she responds because in the same flourish I turn to my cubicle, with my back towards her.
The vacant cubicle? Oh, there is a story there. You see, it is the one closest to the door. No one has been in it since its last occupant, my wife, was shot dead. Right there. On that chair. I remember how her head looked, flopped down on the table. You know, I couldn’t tell how much of the bleeding was because from the hole on her head and how much of it was from the brute impact on hitting the table. I still never can tell. I always wonder if there’s anyway to tell what killed her. Hmm, hypothetically if there was a pillow on that table would she still have died? Did the impact contribute in some way of had the bullet finished the job? But how can a brute impact have no effect at all on her death? Should it not have some say? It would have definitely done some damage even if the bullet was not there. Would it not do some damage along with the bullet too? Hmm, I never can tell. I just think sometimes. When I can.
The cubicle is left empty now. Mala suerte, as the locals call it.
Today, at 8:57 AM I froze in my tracks. I passed not three, but four people. The vacant cubicle was no longer vacant. There was a woman sitting there. She looked at me and smiled while I involuntarily grimaced. This was not part of my routine.
I walked to my desk a little faster than usual and waited for the minutes to pass at 8:58 AM. Another break in routine. I made a rash decision there — an impromptu move that would be entirely out of habit. I decided to sharpen my pencils with the extra two minutes I had on my hands. Not just one, as I usually would, but all three on my desk. It felt odd but a little exciting. The clock struck 9 AM and I started working.
Incredulously, an hour and twenty-seven minutes into the day the new girl stuck her head in my cubicle and asked me if there was a pencil she could borrow. My other companions at work know better than to ask me for a spare; my routine only allows me to sharpen one. Today I did have an extra one to give her and she smiled again, warmly. This time I smiled back, trying to think how this pencil business could be incorporated into my routine. It was unnerving to have it just floating there.
I always work till 12 PM. The second the clock turns to welcome mid-day, I walk towards the cafeteria and grab myself a sandwich. Ham and egg; always ham and egg. On Wednesdays I also get myself a pickle. I eat alone and walk alone till 1 PM. At 1 PM I return back to my desk.
It’s not like I was always this way. After my Maria hit her head on the desk and died, I found to my surprise that I could not keep going back to the same office. The sight of the desk would somehow make me physically sick. I could see phantom pools of her blood, and while I swore they were real, they kept telling me they weren’t.
They tried to bring me back to life, I hear. But I was in bad shape. I would neither sleep, nor eat, nor even work. I would just sit and stare into the distance and think. Did she die because of the bullet or the table? The table or the bullet? I never knew, but I always thought. I thought so much I didn’t sleep or eat or pray or play or talk or work. After a few months, I could see it too — I could see me dying before I was even killed. I neither hit the table nor took a bullet. It wasn’t time for me yet, no. So, I made my routine. I made several copies of the same suit, fixed my order at the cafeteria for the rest of my working days, and did the same things, at the same times. My habits keep me going and my principles keep me content.
The few who still cared tried arguing with me. They would tell me that being content was not the same as being happy. I agreed with them. It’s not the same, I would say, it is better. To be happy is to be alive. To be alive is to fear death. It is to be vulnerable, like a bubbling pot of water on the verge of spilling over at any moment. To be content is to be like a still, cool glass of water filled to the brim. Utterly at equilibrium, devoid of movement and warmth, static and predictable — perfect. Volatility is vulnerable and not everyone is lucky to be stupid enough to choose to be vulnerable. Some of us have been made wiser, driven by force of habit. Habit is a gentle teacher, an affirming friend. She tells you that you are right, you are right, you alone are right. She allows you to stick to only what you know, what you can predict. She is the chill that keeps the glass cool, keeps the water in it from spilling over. She numbs and she calms, and yet somehow forces forward the day. And so she became my sole companion; my best friend for lack of competition. The few who still argued then stopped caring.
But more importantly…sorry, what was I saying? Some unfamiliar movement in my peripheral vision broke my train of thought. I could see someone standing beside my cubicle. How odd, how unnerving. I snapped my head to look and it was her again, New Girl, Pencil Girl. She returned my pencil and asked me to join her for lunch. I asked her why and she laughed and said she was interested in getting to know me.
How odd. How very odd. She found me interesting. She hadn’t yet got the memo to stay away from me, clearly. I am strange. Mechanical, they say. Robotic, weird, freaky, creepy, blank, obsessed, dead. I’d heard all these words before. ‘Interesting’ was a new one. It felt misplaced and dangerous but how strange that I liked it. She would realise soon enough, I thought, that I was best left alone. They had all realised it, none of them wanted to have anything to do with me anymore. That thought didn’t quite tally with the fact that I accepted her offer of lunch, though. Just one day, I decided. Not enough to break my habits, not enough of a compromise of my principles. Only one day of not being alone for lunch.
Far away from the sleepy scramble of an office nearing lunch-time, in a white-walled apartment, my pet cat jumped on the counter and down came crashing my faded blue mug with the creamy polka dots. My routine would never again be the same.
