The blazing rays of the morning sun were peeping through the shades on the window, which cast strong shadows in the room. Sleepily opening his eyes Suresh turned in the bed and looked at the clock on the side table. He abruptly got up and stared at his surroundings. He looked at the time keeper which was telling that it was 8:05 am. Pushing himself out of the foamy comfort of his double bed, he grabbed his cellphone from the desk which housed his laptop and pens and papers and headed to the bathroom in the two bedroom flat in which he was staying as a paying guest with the English couple during his deputation in Oxfordshire by the IT company in which he worked back home in Gurgaon. Inside the bathroom he turned on the music of his favourite composer Sebastian Bach on his cellphone and while the magical composition turned the stark white tiled bathroom seem like the clouds of heaven, Suresh shaved, brushed and bathed.

At sharp 8:30 he was preparing his breakfast of toast and milk in the kitchen. Susan came into the kitchen and without paying any attention to Suresh went to the fridge and stared preparing her own breakfast. Feeling offended Suresh wondered what had happened to cause Susan’s attitude to become so haughty towards him since the past few days. Her husband Charles walked into the small kitchen and hugged his wife without even a glance at Suresh. “Good morning”, he said to the couple but there was no response, “Your new disc player is cool”, he said making small talk, “it’s got the new blu ray laser system, I saw when you brought it yesterday evening.”

But the couple didn’t even look at Suresh. Feeling furious he left the kitchen and went to his room. Grinding his teeth he picked up his shoulder bag, and walked out of the small apartment to the lift. Extremely irritated he punched the lift button many times to come to the fifth floor on which his flat was. The lift finally came and Suresh boarded it, there were two men and a little boy inside, they also didn’t acknowledge his presence. The little boy had a small dog on a leash with a bright golden oval pendant on the collar on which Bozo could be clearly seen engraved. Bozo kept on staring at Suresh and even when they all reached the ground floor and exited the lift, Bozo didn’t remove his gaze from Suresh, so his owner had to forcefully yank of the leash getting a bark in return. Still grumbling Suresh undid the multiple chains and locks and freed his bicycle from the parking stand which was located at the side of the main entrance of the apartment building. He mounted the bicycle and started to furiously pedal to his office which was only fifteen minutes away. His mood fuming he rode on the side road and didn’t bother slowing for pedestrians and other cyclists but merely passed them by repeatedly ringing the bell of the bicycle. The radiant blue sky, the brilliant sun, the cheerfully green grass on the gardens which passed to his side and the gently swaying leafy trees did nothing to improve his sore mood. Reaching his brick red four storey office building which was on the edge of a commercial estate in which many such buildings were located, he chained his bicycle to the stand at the side of the wide stone steps and quickly walked inside the building. As usual the floor inside was humming with activity, three of the half a dozen flat screen televisions on the far wall were mutedly showing news channels and the other three were showing stock market channels on which the rise and fall of the profits of the world economies were being endlessly debated. Most of the light blue and white cubicles which covered the cavernous floor were occupied with their occupants staring unblinkingly at their computer screens. Suresh went to his cubicle and was putting his bag on the table when he saw that his cubicle was nearly bare, his photos of home and all post-its from the dark blue pin-up board were gone, so was the pen stand and the paper filing trays, only the black computer screen on the bare white table stared blankly at him. Dumbfounded he looked up and spotted his immediate supervisor Jonathan drinking water from the water cooler in the centre of the floor. As Suresh was making his way to Jonathan to ask where all his stuff had gone, he was stopped in his tracks by a tapping on his shoulder, spinning around he saw it was Emelia, his colleague from a neighbouring cubicle. Dressed in a cream skirt and brown shirt which matched her brown hair, she looked beautiful as always.

“You can see me right!!”, burst out Suresh.

“Yes”, she replied.

“What’s happened?”, he asked, “why is my cubicle cleaned out and why is everyone”.

“Ignoring you”, Emelia finished his sentence.

Suresh stared at her.

“We don’t belong here,” she said, “You remember last Thursday, we were at the Atlantic Island Inn”, it was the nearby pub which many frequented after office hours, “We were sitting outside, under the awning by the windows, the drunk truck driver had crashed into the Inn, that was it for both of us.”

“What, but, I, but”, Suresh’s eyes were bulging, his jaw dropped, he was trembling now, “but that dog in lift”.

“Only animals can sense us now, not them”, replied Emelia pointing at the people all around them. Just then Jonathan passed right through them as if there was nothing but air, the full horror of the situation struck Suresh.

Emelia held his hand, he stared crying but no tears came from his eyes.

“Will they come for us,” he asked pointing at the ceiling.

“In time they will,” she replied. 

They both held each other and kept standing in the middle of the floor as people continued to pass through them.