And We Drove on

AND WE DROVE ON

I saw this man lying,

Half on the street, half on the footpath

Broken eggs lay around him

(I am not sure,

Maybe it was something else.

I didn’t wait to see.)

It was a sunny winter afternoon.

Cars were whizzing past,

And pedestrians walked the street.

I did not see him at first

Till he pointed him out to me,

From the car window.

And then I saw

And said, “Oh Shit!”

I was cold inside.

Hell, why did he have to show it to me?

“What happened? Accident?”

“No, epilepsy? Maybe something else?”

“Shouldn’t we stop?”

Maybe even he has kids,

A wife, a family?

May be.

“Why isn’t someone doing anything?”

And we drove on.

I saw this policeman standing at the kiosk.

“Maybe we should tell him?”

But, will it bother him?

“He probably sees so many of them everyday”

And we drove on.

Why?

Didn’t I have the time?

I did.

But then, one should be a doctor.

At least that way one can help.

One is not asked a thousand stupid questions

Or found guilty himself.

It becomes a doctors duty.

But not mine?

“I am just an ordinary citizen?”

It could have been someone I knew,

But it wasn’t.

So we just drove on.

We had arrived.

But where and why?