The Copywriter

#realisticfiction #contemporarywriting #worklife #exaggeratedreality #humorfiction #shortstory

I took a job at an ad agency. It wasn't a dream role but I was okay sitting next to some with overflowing talent—until I wasn't. Pretty soon I was drained. Timings were long, money was scarce, and creativity was at an all-time low. I think, majorly it was because of the space. The dreaded?open space.?don’t you hate open spaces? Especially if you write.?

It’s not people talking that is disturbing you anyway. It’s the unsaid banter, the din of the room; mouse-clicking, chair rocking, phones buzzing, bass drums from the headphones—even the faces are loud. How do you even mute the faces?

I had a depressing oil-painted blue desk with a grey pin board that was not only empty but also seemed like the previous owners did very little pinning. The pin board at my previous workplace resembled a colander when I emptied it at the time of leaving. I guess those before me didn't struggle with remembering stuff like me; also, maybe, paper savvy. I looked around and saw that the entire team shared the same DeskJet, which was placed in the corner and manned by the IT guy.??

The guys in the room were no spectacle to watch and sounded better when they said nothing. The girls were no fun. They were friendly though; they liked clothes. I pretended to be friendly with them but I felt intimidated by anyone who dressed well—because I couldn’t afford to dress well. Or maybe it was a matter of choice; I wanted to dress well but then I felt bad about spending my hard-earned money on material things. I thought I was above all that. My personality would speak for me. As if.

If you are thinking I ate my lunch on the toilet seat, you’re mistaken. I was good at making friends. I used to appreciate the girls on how well they dressed. How I loved the color on them, and where did they get those amazing shoes from?

I tried this on everyone and managed to get hold of a permanent girl I could befriend, she was gullible and kind. She was from the client department and she talked a lot. She was perfect. Also, I didn’t hate her face that much because I only saw it at lunchtime.?

So, I had this average job to go to, which I hated, but bragged about it to anyone who asked what I did—that I was a copywriter at an ad agency.?

Have you done any ads? I was often asked.

I gave them a dumbfounded stare; thinking if doing ads were, in fact, a part of my job description—my JD—the rapper name for my duties. Where’s my JD yo! What's in my JD yo!

I’m not sure what I do there, I replied. But they pay me at the end of the month. It’s going.?

But that wasn’t the bad part of my job. The bad part of my job begin one day when I did an extremely shoddy writing assignment—because the guy next to me said that even if I’ve only managed to name a word file in the given time to do my job, I should show the boss that. I should never say that I’m not done. Because even if I’m done, he’s going to reject the whole thing, because technically there is a lot of time to do the gigs. They just keep saying it’s urgent to get as many samples as possible.?

I nodded with diligence.?

When the boss came to my desk, I showed him the pathetic arrangement of words, which had no sense of grammar or literature or humor.?

He hit me most unexpectedly; he didn’t criticize my work. Instead, he told me about his former employee, the one who inhabited this desk before me—the one who pinned nothing on the board. Muzammil, the copywriter.?

He stated audibly, about how Muzammil was so focused and dedicated. How he managed to meet the deadlines with this job being his first ever, and he was only a part-time employee. How Muzammil was so upbeat and trendy with his catchphrases. And so on.?

Being compared to a person that didn’t exist in my physical realm was a different experience for me. It was because I couldn’t decide for myself if the subject of my comparison was in fact, all that, as he was being described or, were his extraordinary skills a facet of imagination to demean me. Did anyone have proof that he copypasted his work from the web? And if he was so good, where is he now? Off on or looking for a better job I suppose. I reckon the person before him was also super dedicated and focused.?

I sat with my emotions all day that day. And like always got very little work done.?

Week after week, Muzammil was praised, and his work was lauded. He was the most committed twenty-year-old they had. He had been offered a pay raise and a permanent position as a senior copywriter. The clients loved his work. And so on.?

There was no end to my misery. Couldn’t they appreciate him in a different room? Why does it always have to be over my head?

I tried to search for his work around the office, but no one knew anything. The computer I had didn’t have his data on it. I never saw anyone his work to compare. Maybe he had copyright issues (pun!). Or maybe he just did editing work that never gets credited by name. I was curious to know about him. Anything.?

I walked up stealthily to a desk in our department. I asked about him.?

He was good, the reply came from the Graphic Designer; minimalist and uninformative. I reckon the girls will talk more. With that inhibition, I walk to my new bestie in the client department.?

Show me a picture of him, I told her.?

She did, there was she in it along with another girl—another copywriter.

It was her last month, so we did a celebration over lunch, she told me cheerfully.?

I didn’t see any guy in that picture.

She laughed and told me, he wasn’t in this picture, but he took it for them.?

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.?

The only thing I could tell from that image was, that he was a bad photographer. The angle was completely off. There’s a lot of sky space in the picture and the subjects look like midgets.?

I needed more information on him. I needed to join the pieces of the puzzle.

Solve the Muzammil puzzle. Muzammil the copywriter. Muzammil the enigma.?Muzammil that haunted me in my sleep. And I would wake up demoralized, demotivated, demeaned and defeated, knowing how ever well I perform I’ll be compared to him the next day at work.?

From an ongoing gossip about Muzammil—as you know by now that people at work loved to talk about him—I came to know that my boss had sent a guy from admin to his place to hand deliver the last paycheck that he never collected. Because he wasn’t picking up his phone and no one from work was in contact with him—which was weird, because I thought he and the boss would be WhatsApp buddies.?And who on earth hand-delivered a check to a junior employee's house? Why was this guy everyone's heartbeat? What is it about him and their limitless obsession with him? Did he leave because he felt smothered??

Anyway, when the admin guy reached his house, it was padlocked.?

He wants to run away from you people!?I wanted to shout. But I didn't, because no one would listen. But then it slowly started coming to me, that why Muzammil was so frequently remembered—not because he spared his last paycheck to the company but because his love story with this agency was unrequited. They didn’t get closure from him. One day he’s at work, doing all his superhero things; the next day…woosh! Disappeared, like a ghost. And they keep remembering him, thinking about him, about what could they have done to stop it. Another desk maybe? A separate cube? He was already offered a better position and pay. He didn’t make any jarring demands. He just took off. Everyone was recuperating from the abrupt parting. They weren’t done mourning and I arrived. And I wasn’t him. I got the work done, but I didn’t do it as well as him. I could never replace the love they had for him and lost.?

Lucky for me, a few months later I got another offer from a place with an even uglier office setting and the worst kitchen ever. The only thing that convinced me to move was—better pay of course, and a quote I read on an image online on a fortune cookie ‘letting go is much a sign of strength than hanging on’.?

I resigned in goodwill, even though a part of me wanted to spook them.?

No one stopped me.

Good riddance, they probably have said—this time thankfully not on my face.?

?? ? ?

(A Few Months Later)

My bestie and I kept in touch. We often hung out when the world became unbearable. On one such meeting—lo and behold—she unfolded some secrets about Muzammil.?

He was my university friend, she told me.?

I found it hard to believe. But then leaned my head forward in interest.?

I got him the job, she said. I gave his CV to the department head.?

I wondered if she got jealous of the attention he got and bartered him for ransom.?

He had a thing for me, she laughed shyly. You know how these guys are. Then she went, He took the job so we could be closer to each other.?

I filled my gaping mouth with a brownie we had ordered. Since I never had a guy-friend outside the internet, I had no idea what an actual relationship felt like. Love was always a topic of interest because no guy ever took interest in me.

I told him we couldn’t be together, my family would never approve of him.

There was no point in stalling things and getting deeper into each other when I know isn’t any possibility of us being together, she clarified.?

I nodded appreciatively, as though I understood her. As though I wasn’t already in an imaginary-hate relationship with Muzammil. As though I cared about their short-lived romance.

He took it to his heart. The last thing he texted me before he disappeared was that he would never see me again. I wrote, Lol, and he never replied to me. He never showed up at work the next day or the day after that. He was absent from the university, missed two semesters. His house was padlocked. I got super worried.

Is he back now? I asked.

Yes,

I skipped a beat.

But we have separate classes so I don’t get to see him. And he doesn’t talk to me, she shrugs.?

?? ? ?

(A Few Months Later)

I was lying on my bed, back from a grueling workday. When I got a call from my bestie, asking me if I could come down to my building gate. She wanted my expertise in navigating Saddar. She wanted some material for her assignment from a particular shop and that I should show her the way.?

When I came down, she wasn’t alone.?

Muzammil the copywriter, was standing there in plain unhindered sight, smiling at me; the full puzzle altogether—dedicated, university-going, tall, kind eyes, narrow smile, clean blue shirt, full head of hair—not in any way the evil benediction that I had assumed he would be. If anything else, I found him…cute.?

Hi Zainab, he said with a knowing smile. I wondered how much he knew about me, not more than I knew about him surely. But I could see why my ex-boss was so hurt when he left the agency. He had that kind of face that fooled people into thinking he liked them. He was polite and he had that effect.?

We started walking, the three of us. They asked me for routes and we rambled on the streets of Saddar, trying to dodge litter and dripping water from the roadside balconies and sewer; hoping over uneven pavements, and dashing through the traffic and hawkers, and deflecting bikers on the footpath.

He was nice to me. They made me part of their jokes like I was their friend from a long time ago. We finished our work and on our way back we stopped for a paratha roll. He asked me if I ate that every day since it was so tasty and was selling next to my building.?

I did. Every Sunday Abbu bought paratha roll. But he only bought one type, the one with pieces of barbequed chicken, onion and chutney. I never actually stopped by the shop to buy the roll myself; I found out that day that they had different kinds and flavors.?

After eating, they walked me home. I went up the stairs and they took a rickshaw that was randomly waiting by the building gate.?

When I reached my flat, Ammi asked me who the boy was, she probably saw him from our balcony. I replied: He's Muzammil, the copywriter. He’s very dedicated and hardworking.?

?? ? ?