Sarabjeet Garcha
Unending
Unending
It’s hard to know how tiny
that room must have been,
the room in which only
one man could lie down
on a night the town
was dangerously close
to being drowned in rain.
It isn’t hard to know
what a knock meant.
The door opened and soon
there was only enough room
for two to sit, the rain
writing its unending story outside.
Another knock, and there were
three standing shoulder to shoulder,
faces to the wall facing the street.
The story doesn’t say anything
about a window allowing light in,
or a bulb hanging from the roof,
or a kerosene lamp fashioned
from an ink bottle with a wick
thrust through a hole in the top.
The story also doesn’t say anything
about a third knock announcing
the arrival of a fourth man.
Had there been another seeker,
we know what would’ve happened.
The first one to open the door
would’ve stepped outside,
letting the other two
sleep while standing,
letting the latest guest
cross the threshold
and enter the new room
that the other two had
just built with eyes shut,
a room so wide that
the whole town slept
under its roof, the rain
writing its unending story outside.