Short story - Degauss

'You know where most of our time get wasted?' Ram asked his wife Sita.

She was not immediately answering. She was trying to catch up with him as they were walking around the lake.

‘What?’ she asked

‘I was asking about where we waste most of our time in life?’, Ram is used to repeating things to people around.

Ram knows that every one is lost in their world of thoughts these days. You need to convey something that brings them back from their sleep. So obviously the first thing when they wake up is a ‘What?’.

Sita was not answering immediately. It is one of those ‘too generic’ type of questions that Ram asks.

Ram continued ‘ You know what.. it is the time we spend meeting useless people, talking useless things and thinking useless stuff. In fact all these are inter-related’.

Sita interjected and said ‘How do you say something is useless?’

Ram said ‘Not that you can find it before striking a conversation. While you are going through it, you get that feeling that this does not relate to me at all. It is just noise in my otherwise noisy mind. Then you know you are meeting this useless person and having a useless conversation’.

Sita was at heart more empathetic to people than Ram. She normally views Ram’s statements from this prism. So she did not acknowledge this line of thought.

She said ‘You cannot always see things from a utilitarian or commerce point of view. You need to be mindful that we are humans and not computers or machines. It is fine if you find a useless person. Just move on. Do not be going deep into it and frame everything around you as useless’.

Ram did not leave it. He retorted back ‘Sita, whats wrong with a utilitarian point of view? Isn’t the sweatshirt you are wearing, the phone you hold not come from people who have spent their time usefully? I am just trying to maximise the time we spend usefully doing something. That does not mean I am up against every situation that renders me helpless. Its obvious that life always throws strange things at you and you cannot be productive about all of those. It is a way of gauging something like a meter and trying to have a way of moving out of it’.

There was a bit of silence. It usually happens after a conversation reaches its crescendo. Normally the topic changes at this point.

Ram suddenly shouted in a excited tone. “What if I had a magic wand that can make people’s heads align to me like the iron filings getting aligned to a magnet. You see in the MIB movie where he shows a baton to sort of degauss the folks to forget what they saw about the aliens floating in their midst”.

Sita was smiling. She knew Ram won’t leave it from this point.

True to her belief, Ram built a magic wand.

He was walking on a day when Sita did not accompany him around the lakeside. He was immersed in his thoughts as usual.

He heard a voice behind “Hi Ram, Good morning, long time since we met”. It was Shyam.

Ram had met him during one of the morning walks when they kind of bumped into each other. Initially Ram felt they had lot of common topics like politics, Gods and so on. Soon it dawned on Ram that it comes in the way of his thought stream as he walks and started avoiding Shyam.

Now there is no way. Shyam continued “Time is sucked by Facebook. You do not know when you enter it and when you exit. I love these walks which give me more satisfaction than sitting and posting messages and liking some strange photos shown by your relative’.

Ram did not have much choice. He was not the avid FB user. Still he had to do more than just smile and nod his head.

He said ‘Yeah, these guys when they meet, they rarely talk. But they keep doing these likes for even something stupid. Such is the emptiness in our lives and FB is a perfect sucker of that life’s vacuum’.

The talk went on. Ram suddenly became aware that the conversation is no more connecting with him. Shyam was still ranting something.

Ram stealthily took out the baton. It was a metal rod like thing. Shining, but not so big.

He had tried it in the lab and measured the field with a magnetometer.

He was swift. He waved it along the side of Shyam.

Shyam collapsed.

 
Another funny ending for this story (based on inputs from my friend)

The talk went on. Ram suddenly became aware that the conversation is no more connecting with him. Shyam was still ranting something. 

Ram stealthily took out the baton. It was a metal rod like thing. Shining, but not so big.  He had tried it in the lab and measured the field with a magnetometer.

He was swift. He waved it along the side of Shyam.

Shyam felt something by his side and turned back to look at Ram. He had by now moved a little ahead. He saw this steel like shining baton that Ram was carrying.

‘Hey whats that? Something to scare the dogs away?”,  he was now a bit curious.

Ram still not very clear from his earlier act, tried to get himself back into the conversational mode. He just tried to mumble ‘Oh that's nothing…my son had brought it from somewhere and he had left it in this jacket I guess..I was trying to know from where this came….and by the way, how right your observations are about Facebook. I am absolutely aligned to your thoughts on it’.

‘Wow, this is going places’ Shyam thought to himself, feeling the golden colour shining baton inside his jacket. 'It is getting people aligned to me more than ever’.