by: Saptarshi Bhowmick
It was my 12th day,
and the clock strikes twelve
when a sudden shrill ran down my spine.
Leaving my bed I ventured through the corridor,
a vestibule long enough to foreshadow a living soul.
Like a hollow men of Elliot’s pen,
not alike but be in literal sense,
I moved on.
Each cabin on my left was silent
as the wall to my right prefers to stay.
Without knowing the inhabitants of those cabins
no one can guess what world they belonged to,
and what story they represent.
Only silence is the sound of their life,
stayed echoingly, to remind us that
once all of them lived on this dead soil.
Today might be they went under
but the soil was lovelier than before.
Like a mother lulling her child after a long period.
It gives me peace;
Knowing not when I became so familiar,
with death and its fear.
That today the morgue and the churchyard
felt so soothing,
and I can finally accept my job
as an Undertaker.