On a dark foggy night...

This story was was emailed to me by my friend during the appraisal season... Make sure you read it till the end!

On a dark foggy night, a small figure lay huddled on the railway tracks leading to the Chennai station. At once I was held back to see someone in that position during mid night with no one around. With curiosity taking the front seat, I went near the body and tried to investigate it.

There was blood all over the body which was lying face down. It seemed ruthless blow by the last train could have caused the end of this body which seemed to be that of a guy around my age. Amidst the gory of blood flow, I could see a folded envelope which was fluttering in the midnight wind.

Carefully I took the blood stained envelope and was surprised to see the phrase “Appraisal Letter” written on it. With curiosity rising every moment, I wasted no time in opening the envelope to see if I can find some details about the dead guy. The tag around his body’s neck and the jazzy appraisal cover gave me the hint that he might be a software engineer. I opened the envelope to find a shining paper on which the appraisal details were typed in flying colours.

Thunder broke into my ears and lightning broke into my heart when I saw the appraisal amount of the dead guy! My God, it was not even, as much as the cost of the letter on which the appraisal details were printed...  My heart poured out for the guy and huge calls were heard inside my mind saying, “No wonder, this guy died such a miserable death”... As a fellow worker in the same industry, I thought I should mourn for him for the sake of respect and stood there with a heavy heart thinking of the shock he would have experienced when the manager had placed the appraisal letter in his hand. I am sure his heart would have stopped and eyes would have gone blank for a few seconds looking at the near to nothing increment in his salary.

While I mourned for him, for a second my hands froze to see the employee’s name in the appraisal letter... hey, what a strange coincidence, this guy’s name same as mine, including the initials. This was interesting. With some mental strength, I turned the body upside down and found myself fainted for a second. The guy not only had my name, but also looked exactly like me.  Same looks, same built, same name... it was me who was dead there!

While I was lost in that shock, I felt someone patting on my shoulders. My heart stopped completely, I could not breathe and sprung in fear to see who was behind... SPLASH! Went the glass of water on my laptop screen as I came out of my wild dream to see my manager standing behind patting on my shoulder saying, “Wake up man? Come to meeting number two. I have your appraisal letter ready!”