Bus trouble
Aditya Rishi

(Continued from last week)

THE buses were made just like the hotel, to hold infinitely many persons. The young man employed by the owner could hear rumbling in the parking lot. The buses were arriving, while the owner had his head buried in his hands after losing the secret of how to lodge infinitely many guests.

The owner told the young man: "I can't remember what to do, so, we'll just pull out that 'No Vacancy' sign we've never had to put up before." He, then, turned and went through door 8. The honking and shouting from the parking lot was getting louder, so, the young man decided to disobey his master. First, he made the usual announcement that emptied out all the odd-numbered rooms, which gave him some time to think.

He, then, started out slowly towards the parking lot, and, with every step, he thought harder and deeper. When he got to the first bus, he had an idea. He told the first couple of drivers to pass the word down that all passengers would file off the buses and fill up the odd-numbered rooms. Now, all he had to do was get all guests to alight from the buses in an orderly way so no one would get skipped and no one would have infinitely many persons in line in front of him or her.

"We'll take the first person off the first bus and the first person off the second bus. Then, we get the next two persons off the first bus, one person from the second bus, one person from the third bus, and one person from the fourth bus.'' The passengers were cheerful and followed the instructions like it was a game.

After the first person got off the fourth bus, they worked their way backwards, taking one person off the third bus, the second bus, and the first bus. Then, one more off the first bus, and they worked their way back up, taking one person from each bus that was already in the game and adding a person from the fifth bus and a person from the sixth bus, this time. Back and forth they went, always letting two persons off the first bus and starting to empty two more buses in each round.

It looked like it would work and the odd-numbered rooms were slowly filling up. The rooms were about half-full when the guests started rushing out saying they smelled smoke. The young man got on the loudspeaker and told everyone to get back on the buses, including the guests in the even-numbered rooms. Firemen could not save the peculiarly designed building, but found the owner in room 80,00,000. He was in shock. Soon, there was no Rooms Unlimited anymore, only a sign that the employee had not put up: 'Rooms Unlimited, No Vacancy'. "Impossible!" he said. (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in)