An Evening At Gloria Jeans

Today, after so many days
while having coffee at Gloria Jeans…
I have gulped down the evening too
with the last sip
My stomach is now full of
Chocolate solitude
and you, holding the paper mug
in your hands,
silent and frigid in awe, like always,
looking at me on this sudden encounter
wondering, how on earth the time
that stood still before the genesis
has found its way to Gloria Jeans?

The evening, I had seen you
for the very first time
was just as murky as it is today
The history wasn't born yet
On the Earth, there was geography
defined by the birds and the animals only
The time used to drift in shadows and you
awestruck and apprehensive like always
were looking at me

You never kept yourself aware of anything
You don't even know that
my world is too small these days
like the realms of flora and pests
in which there are columns of marching ants
and the birds' nests
snakes made of flexible plastic and
the flying and crawling insects
and a little offspring who plays
with the epoch of ice-age
No wonder if he does so
because, the children of cyber-age
play with the eras not with toys
and just like that the history begins
and comes to an end
Boat-houses and the waterways
and the cities full of painters and the sculptures
are established and then ransacked
and with the dead bodies of the kings
thousands of toadies get buried alive too
and just like that, time after time
centuries turn into despair

You don't even remember
that I had seen you the second time
right in the middle of hostile lands
Stooping and crawling
in the underground tunnels
and in the abodes carved into the caves
where ventilation was made possible
through holes and the chimneys
Your dreams camouflaged
even in the deep slumber
and your lips tightly sealed with a grin
as if, if the world was split into two halves
But now, the world has been divided
into so many parts that, to show it to someone
even the lines in a palm are not enough

And right here, at this very place
where this city is hustling and bustling
and we are sitting here in Gloria Jeans
I had seen you for the last time
here, there were only a few dwellings
there was a trail and a bend
where I was standing
With the worst defeats and disgraces
streets were deserted and the rooftops desolate
smoke was rising up from the trees and the abodes
and only a forlorn glimpse of you
The enemy had jammed all the communication
between hearts and the minds
The hills had denied the refuge to us
and the clouds were bursting out of nowhere

And today yet again - after so many ages
we have met at Gloria Jeans
and like always you don't even know
that we live in the same housing society
We have no history, no geography
just one civic center and
a necropolis
and in Gloria Jeans
the time has not come to a standstill
it is striding on a lightening pace! 

(Translated from the original Urdu into English by Kamran Awan)