All too familiar indeed!

As Tejas sat there, in his mind's eye, he could see a lady in a red salwar suit, pounding and grinding some leaves in a mortar. Only her back was visible to him. When she poured a thick green paste on a plate, an extremely sweet sappy smell filled his head and the room. He didn't remember what happened after that.

He eyed one of the bolt shaped leaves. The specks of red on the leaf made it look very similar to the one in his memory. He had a strong urge to go near the plant and smell it. Could it remind him about more things? He sniffed through the mask trying to get a whiff of that sweet aroma. His mind was so filled with questions that much later did a realization hit him, "Was it poisonous too?"

He sat down again, even though the lights blinked in the garden, even though, he could repeatedly hear, "Please stay away from the plants." He needed to know. Somehow it felt like the next clue to his past.

Why were those the only things he could remember about them? Who was that lady? He moved closer, the side effects had to be written somewhere. But as soon as he crossed the red path and stepped on the soil, he felt the mild shock again.

He backed down, in pain but one of the branches of another plant had managed to touch his uniform and melted a part of it.

No sooner did that happened than he began to suffocate. He felt that the intensity of the lights had increased and that the voice on the speaker grew louder.

Laksh was running as fast as he could through the wall. He picked him and ran out of the place.

There were some people in high collared white and saffron robes standing outside the garden, at the door, ready to take Tejas.

Tejas' masks were immediately removed and a tube was put inside his mouth. Through the tube, some gasses were being sucked out of his body.

Then oxygen was administered to him. The stroller, that carried him, moved slowly and smoothly away from the 'garden'. The people in robes followed the stroller to check on him.

Just after the incident, he heard from the speaker, "Mr Laksh Shah, the emergency is taken care of. You may return to your area of work."

Laksh, who too had taken off his mask, nodded and said, "I'll be right back."

His face was sweaty and his hair stuck to his forehead. He wasn't smiling when he had gone to work earlier, but their was a sour and bitter expression on his face. He went to the mirrored room again, this time were some red circles on the screen. This time it took him even longer than Tejas to get out of the room. He passed through all the procedures for the second time.

When he finally reentered the garden, he heard, "Don't worry Mr Laksh. It wasn't your fault."

He didn't say anything. Instead, he walked to the cart that Tejas had abandoned and filled it with the mini bottles.

Laksh didn't feel sad or scared for his friend. He was annoyed. How could someone be so irresponsible? After telling him countless times not to do something, he didn't listen.

Suddenly instead of driving the cart, like he was supposed to, he sat near the shelves of mini bottles. This day reminded him of another day when similar incidents had taken place. He was reminded of an old friend who almost died.

Laksh looked around. He heard from the speaker, "You must get back to your duty." But he didn't react to that sentence.

There was complete silence and in the midst of that silence, Laksh stared at the big clock. It was only 5:30 in the morning. He still had one hour more to spend there.

He got up, dusted himself, and vanished through the wall to the other place where he was working earlier.