The Orwellian 'Market'

The smogged out city looked desolate in a forlorn way. That was not true of course. But it didn’t matter. In just a few minutes, the multi-colour haloes would flood it anyway. He looked at his watch, it showed 9:08 AM - a mere 7-minute wait.

A slight morning breeze had picked up, a surprise given the cluster of tall buildings all around. The clock struck 9:15 AM and everywhere lights lit up the buildings. Their haloes.

The FLT Financials was lit up in green. Ah, the stock had appreciated. The HMT Constructions was lit up in red. Their stock had depreciated. And then there was this flutter ahead - a green, a red, an amber, a red and then finally settled an amber. My God! It was almost like a heartbeat and won’t their hearts too be racing.

He finally reached his own office and it was covered in red. A seemingly dark red (after all it was the third consecutive day). His shoulders stooped. It was going to be a long day.

The elevator opened on the 13^th floor to a deafening silence. Usually, there would be some laughs floating on the vapours from the steaming tea being dispensed by the coffee machine just next to the eventual entrance to the office. But “Code Red”, the unofficial term for what was happening, was underway. He walked through the entrance and to his left was greeted by the silent coffee machine while to his right was a line after line of slightly bowed heads (with a strikingly straight back posture) looking at their laptop screens and working furiously on it. But then it all seemed odd. Almost everyone was here, …… actually, everyone was already here except him. He grimaced. He brought his phone out and saw the seemingly blood red Whatsapp notification staring at him. And then he looked up to the staring and angrily distorted face of his boss.

The stars behind the smog were twinkling to the lullaby of late night. But the midnight lamps were burning literally here. Sending the last MIS of the day (early night), he closed his laptop and got up to leave. Out in the hot, fuzzy night, one drowned in the electric orange, he lit up a cigarette and introspect. He remembered that cold morning last year when the financial emergency was declared. What it meant was that more than 60% of the companies were in red for a continuous week. It was an Orwellian nightmare. They worked day and night for a whole continuous week with 10-minute break every 3 hours distributed uniformly across employees. Respite came with the morning of a Monday. A Monday. Ah the irony. The heat was stifling but it was still a free night. He booked an OLA and puffed his way to an imagined glory waiting for the cab.