He was sitting there. All 75 odd inches and 100 kilos of him. Imposing on and consuming that tiny cabin. The air conditioner whirred in a low hum as I sat across the table thinking of about 23 things at the same time. 'What is it about some people?", I wondered. Why are they just so unapproachable. I had absolutely no reason to fear anything. This man just happened to have a reputation of being quirky and hard-to-please. Or so rumor had it. And whats with the head games? People had painstakingly cultivated an image of this huge man, with an even huger aura around him. And, I was thinking now, they hadn't exaggerated. He just sat staring at the worksheet on the screen, completely not amused. I felt like the silence in the room was on his side, and I was left alone, nowhere to hide.

And then it happened. The silence was shattered. An involuntary sound that not even the big man could suppress. The most thickest, densest, wettest, longest, and the most resounding fart ever, echoed in that quiet cabin for about 3 seconds. 3 freaking long seconds. So long, yet not long enough for me to figure out how I was to react. I waited for the echoes in the room, and in my mind, to die. Then our eyes met. He grimaced. I sniggered. My thoughts were playing catch up with my actions, and before the 'don't laugh you moron' synapse fired in my brain, my eyes were already watering from a poorly stifled laugh. Then the laugh went away, when the dense air made its way to my poor lungs. I didn't care who the guy was. I just wanted to get up and open the door. And that would have been perfectly justified. But because of my smooth maneuver with the laughter, I didn't find enough courage to hold my breath, stand up, walk to the door, open it, let out the ugly air from within me, and breathe some sweet fresh air. So we both just sat there.

Talk of relationship dynamics. Talk of tables being turned. I had topsy-turvied the guy like he wouldn't have imagined. By doing nothing, basically. In the world we live in, if one person out of two farts in a tiny enclosed room, then the non-farter automatically assumes all authority, and controls the other person. For life, perhaps. But definitely for a few weeks to come. I know as much!

Right after the deed had happened, he tried to hurriedly get started with some non-sensical discussion. Hoping perhaps, that a cognitive overload of too many things happening around me would push the fart out of my memory. Alas. It had been tattooed on my brain by then. But at least I found out that the ice can been broken...not just by the warmth, but by sound and smell as well.