How it bottled down to Fear

She was seated at her desk with her ear phones plugged in, listening to her favorite song. She heard some vague noise in the background but she managed to ignore it. Soon the commotion began to increase and she found her neighboring colleagues getting up from their cubicles and looking in the same direction. Sighing she got up too, expecting to see something like a trivial fight. Instead the sight that she witnessed was that one of their co-workers was catching the collar of another and both were struggling, possibly to hit each other.

The commotion was more because everyone else around them were yelling at them to stop, from a very safe distance, obviously no one wanted to get hurt in the process. Great, she thought, what amazing office entertainment! She was about to return to her desk, when one of the guys removed a pen knife from inside his shoe’s sock. The guy supposedly had a history of the typical ‘gundagardi’ but no one at work had ever seen this side of him. The guy opened his pen knife and took it close to the other guy’s throat.

The noise now got ten times worse. Girls started squealing at the top of their voices, men continued screaming but this time with more panic in their voices. The guy who was being ‘bullied’ had pure terror in his eyes and was struggling now to get away rather than fight back. She watched this in silence and then leaned against the wall. A slow smile crept onto her lips as she saw the ‘duel’. Now this was entertainment, she thought.  

She saw the mad anger in the knife-guy’s eyes and she wondered why it was there. These two had always squabbled before and had even been warned by their boss once to lay off but, wait, she thought, where was their boss? His room was empty. Hadn’t anyone thought of calling him? He could probably stop it. She was about to suggest it when someone else yelled “Stop it! The boss is on his way!”

But for that kind of mad rage even probably calling the God himself wouldn’t have helped. It was almost as if they couldn’t see or hear anyone around them! Even though all around her were scared for the collar-held guy all she could think of was, what had ticked Knife-guy off so bad? And so, in what she assumed was a small voice she asked to the room at large “Arre but what the hell happened?”

At that moment Knife-guy turned his red, blood shot eyes on her, and she felt a pure thrill of fear! Shit, how had he heard her? “You wanna know what happened?” She barely managed a nod before Knife-guy began shaking Collar-held and said “Why don’t you ask him?”

The whole room went silent now. Everyone wanted to know the reason behind the whole drama. Collar-held, who was already frantic was being asked to talk! He was so shaken that his words were barely audible or comprehendible. “I… wife… sorry… didn’t mean… sorry… joking… really!”

The stress on the last word was so obviously out of panic and fear that she actually wanted to laugh.

“Say it properly you jerk!” threatened Knife-guy when their boss came storming in. His stern face glaring at Knife-guy. “Let go of him and put that knife away before I rusticate you for office violence!”

Knife-guy gave one last threatening look to Collar-held and then let him go, put his knife back in his socks and stormed out but not before saying to the boss, “Ask him what he said.”

Boss looked at Collar-held, who was now massaging his neck. “In my cabin!” The relieved guy now followed Boss inside the cabin and the door closed.

Dammit, she thought now they wouldn’t know the reason! Well they would, eventually. Office gossip spread fast, but at the spur of the moment it was more interesting. She sighed and returned to her desk. Everyone around her began chattering at once, making up their own stories, or rather making ONE story out of the bits they all knew, one girl even began crying!! Sheesh... But all she could remember was the rage in one pair of eyes and terror in the other, and more importantly the fear she experienced when Knife-guy had looked at her with those eyes.

And then she realized, at the end of the day, how much ever people preached non-violence or brain over brawn, it was the stronger, armed man who was feared. The threatened was simply left with pity. Whatever may have been the reason for Knife-guy’s anger, either legitimate or not, it was he who would be listened to, and probably even respected, though the root was purely fear.

The only thing this entire incident had achieved was that now all would be careful aroung Knife-guy because, even if they denied it, they all now feared the man who had threated with a knife...