A Peaceful Afternoon
The park was pleasant — peaceful, shaded by tall trees.
On the green grass, two salesmen loosened their ties. Then, while unbuttoning their shirts, they ended up taking them off altogether. Shoes and socks came off next. One of them rested his head on his fine leather bag and lay back. The heat was unbearable.
Shepherds of Customers
Arka sighed, “Who’d have thought we’d end up as shepherds, herding customers all day long? We roam everywhere like this.”
Prabal laughed. “When I was a kid, they once told me to write a story about a shepherd.”
He recited, grinning:
A shepherd boy grazes his cows in the field —
That’s how my story begins.
The cows die of plague, now he grazes sheep —
That’s how my story ends.
Arka burst out laughing too.
“Now you’re paying for that shortcut,” he teased.
“Why so?” Prabal protested lightly. “Didn’t Kafka already say — one day, everyone in the world will have to become a salesman?”
The Stillness of the Park
Three cleaning women, done with their morning shifts, came and stretched out on a nearby bench for their afternoon rest. Then the man selling mugs and buckets arrived, leaning his load of colorful plastic goods against a tree.
A faint breeze blew — enough to lull everyone into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The Call Back to Reality
The silence broke when a tinny jingle buzzed from Arka’s pocket — the company phone. The rhythm was off; the GPS app complained: “You’re not moving at all.”
Startled, the two men quickly slipped their socks and shoes back on, buttoned up, tightened their ties.
The women glanced up from the bench and watched them, heads tilted in quiet curiosity.
