Bozo

I've tried my hand at humour again. A short story, that took a long time to complete.

***********************************************************************************

Bozo

I ran from the station to my office, which was like a good 10 minutes away. Shit! I was late. Again. Even though it was still February, the summers were already here. Sweat poured down my back making me even more irritated. Bozo had indicated just yesterday that I was making a habit of coming late. Shit shit shit! When I entered the office building, a blast of the cool A.C. air hit me, making me feel slightly better. I hurried to my cubicle, praying feverishly that Bozo wasn’t on his seat.

For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet – I call my boss Bozo. Why? Have patience, you’ll find out soon.

Phew! He wasn’t on his seat. His bag was also not to be seen anywhere, which meant that he hadn’t come in yet. I quickly booted my machine, opened a lot of screens, and made it look like I was busy working for a long time. After gulping the usual cup of the brownish liquid that the canteen boy insisted on calling coffee, I actually set to work. I had a lot of work piled up, and not because I wasn’t working – trust me I was working my butt off – it was because Bozo expected me to work at superhuman speed, and hence gave me a lot of work. He himself didn’t do anything, and somehow that didn’t seem to bother him. He never worked because honestly, he didn’t know how to do anything. For the smallest of things he would require my help. The only thing he knew how to do, and very well that too, was to say “Oh my God!” Whatever the situation, he would always say that.

“Good morning! Oh my God… you’re working huh? Good… “ I looked up to find him flustered and sweating and panting.
Excuse me! What do you know about working? Have you ever worked in your entire life? Idiot…
“Good morning sir…” I forced a smile and said.
Bloody fool.
I got back to work, and soon was completely engrossed in this really interesting issue that needed to be resolved urgently – everything in this office by the way needs to be resolved urgently- when Bozo called out to me.
“Hey you…”
I have a name u oaf.
“Yes sir?” I said.
“Now look… I have two different files in two different windows in notepad. How do I merge the them and make a third file”?
I wish I could make two of you and throw each of you on two different planets.
“Ummm… you er... copy each of them and paste them in a new file…” I said.
“Ah… Yes…” He said, dismissing me and getting back to whatever he was doing.
Grrrrrr…
“You’re welcome…” I mumbled to myself and got back to work.

The day passed by slowly but steadily. He hadn’t bothered me after that atrocious question, and trust me I wasn’t complaining. Somewhere in the afternoon, I heard a weird sound. It sounded like a cat stuck somewhere. I ignored it once, but then I heard it again. This time it sounded more like a dog stuck somewhere. I got up to investigate, looking everywhere: under my cubicle, above my cubicle, outside the window, but I couldn’t find the source of the sound. The sound, by then had intensified in volume, and maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to have intensified in urgency also. All sorts of thoughts ran through my head, where I imagined a poor cat/dog/helpless-animal stuck is a small rut somewhere. I would rescue it lovingly, and well I’d see then what to do of it. I was jolted out of my reverie by another instance of the weird sound. This time it sounded more like a lion was stuck somewhere.

I’m coming sweetie… hold on!

I moved in the direction of Bozo’s desk as the last time I heard the sound, it sounded like it was coming from somewhere there. Maybe Bozo had kidnapped some cat/dog/helpless-animal. It would be even more fun to embarrass Bozo, not that he got embarrassed anyways. I was looking under his desk to see if the cat/dog/helpless-animal was there when I heard it again.
That’s weird, I thought. It’s coming from above the desk.

“Excuse me sir…” I started speaking and stopped. Bozo was fast asleep. He must have been reading some document on the computer, and dozed off. My dreams of rescuing the cat/dog/helpless-animal went flying out of the window. His lips contorted, and phhhrrrrrhhhhh! he snored again. Out of all sounds in the world, it was the sound of Bozo snoring. Snoring! But I wasn’t all that off the mark. Agreed he wasn’t helpless but he surely resembled an animal. And a really dumb animal that too! I looked at him closely, taking in his chubby cheeks, receding hairline and snoring lips and almost burst out laughing. Small beads of sweat covered his upper lip, and there was a speck of food at the corner of his mouth. Yuck!

I looked around. There were not many people in office. It was just after lunch, and most people had not returned. Now is the time to get my revenge from him, I thought. Revenge for all the stupid questions he asked, for all the impossible deadlines he set, for just being Bozo. After racking my brains I quickly formed a plan of action. I filled a glass up to the brim with chilled water from the cooler, and placed it next to his hand on which his head was resting. Then, I spilled some more water around his chair. After removing the paperweight, which was kept on a bunch of papers on the desk, I went and sat in my place. Satisfied that everything was in place, I looked around one last time, and then shouted with all my might-
“Bozo!!!”

Bozo awoke with a start, causing his hand to hit the glass of water that I had kept there. The glass fell on the table making the water spill on the desk and on him. He yelped as the cold water fell on him, and immediately got up from his chair trying to move away from the desk. The moment he stepped away, he slipped on the water that was on the floor, landing with a thud on his rather big butts. I leaned over and switched on the fan, which made all the papers fly about everywhere. He got up hurriedly and tried to gather the wet papers before they flew away.

“What the hell just happened here?” he asked, coming over to my cubicle.
I removed the earphones from my ears and said, “Pardon me?”
“I said what happened? What was that loud noise?”
“There was a noise?” I asked feigning innocence, “I must have not heard it because of the earphones…”
He grunted and walked away.

The next day, the entire office was abuzz with a certain kind of excitement. There was a crowd near the notice board. Bozo walked towards it, presumably wondering what the fuss was about. He went till the notice board, and looked there to find an A-4 size picture of his very big and wet backside, bending over to pick up the wet papers. A caption below the picture read – “Office Stress - OH MY GOD!” His face was not visible in the picture, and that’s what the entire fuss was about. The entire office was wondering who this fool was!

I sat at my desk, smiling to myself as I saw the look on Bozo’s face as he walked back to his desk. He had obviously recognized the photograph, and for once was clearly embarrassed. When he had bend down to pick up a bunch of papers, I had clicked the snap with the camera in my latest state-of-the-art cell phone. I heard his “Oh my God…Oh my God… Oh my God!” and so I asked him,
“What happened sir? What’s the fuss about?”
“Oh nothing… er... some stupid fool got caught on camera with his pants wet! Nobody knows who it is… Oh my God! It’s unbelievable…" His face was a clear picture of embarrassment."Who could have... well lets get back to work… we shouldn’t waste our time on such silly things!”

I smiled, satisfied that I had at least embarrassed him a bit, when he called out to me again.
“Hey you…the thing is that I don’t understand how this is done… if you could come here and do it…”
Oh my God! Help!!
“Yes sir…”

**********************************************************************************

Hope that got a few chuckles out of you!

untill next time...