There was a window on my right
And there was a window on my left
I was walking in a narrow corridor
There seemed to be a similar one on my right
Just as there was one on my left
Someone was walking in the right corridor
At my pace, almost in step with me
Someone was walking in the left one too
The windows were only a few feet wide
They were as high as the tallest man
And they started out from the very floor
One was followed by another
And was preceded by one too
On either side of me
But I could see only a few windows ahead
And a few behind
I just couldn’t see further
As I walked past a pair
Another pair came into the view ahead
Just as one disappeared behind me
There were windows but no doors
I couldn’t remember what building I was in
Its front door, the path leading to it
I couldn’t remember how I got there, or why
The last thing I could remember
Was that I was walking on an open street
People were walking on my left
And they were also there on my right
The most that my memory seemed to be saying
Was that the open street had simply
Become the narrow corridor
And I felt as if I had a part in this
And I desperately wanted to say
That I had resisted, that I did
I couldn’t see the end of the corridor
I turned back, but I couldn’t see the entrance
I turned several times to make sure
But then I realized I had forgotten
Even the direction I was walking in
Whichever side I turned
The people on the right
As well as the people on the left
Were facing the same way as me
I looked up at the ceiling
And I looked down at the floor
They seemed quite ordinary and stable
But I noticed small holes in both
One hole per pair of windows
I bent down and tried to look
Through the one on the floor
There was something below
But I couldn’t make out what
I could see shapes and figures
I could see some movement
But I didn’t know what it meant
Still, one side of my mind
Continuously kept telling me
That I knew everything
About what was below
The ceiling was too high for me to try
But the same side of my mind was telling me
That I knew something about
What was above too
I walked in the corridor for a long time
Long as long can be
Going past windows past windows past windows
Then I started noticing some sounds
It took me a while to recognize them
One was like a loud splash
Another was that of a sudden snap
One was intense, condensed and explosive
Another was of total suffocation
One sounded like a painful gargle
But I couldn’t recognize them all
With each of these sounds was an empty window
One sound and one empty window
On my left as well as on my right
One after the other and another after that one
The head whirled for a while
Then all became very quiet
The windows were no longer empty
But there was something odd
I could see myself on my right
And so could I on my left
The windows had all become mirrors
And all I could think of doing
Was to wait for a sound
But I couldn’t help hoping
That it would be something different