Why can't we see in dark where there is a bulb which was once ONN and now it's OFF, the photons released when bulb was ONN should travel to our eye?

Question

Suppose a boy is in a room with a bulb (no windows and other light sources). Now the boy ON's the bulb and OFFs it such that only one photon is released (hypothetical). Now the bulb is OFF. The photon should collide (elastically, so no loss in energy) with the walls and eventually after many collisions reach our eyes, the boy should be able to see the part of the wall with which the photon last collided. But this is not the case we don't see anything so what happened to the photon which was released? What happens if we replace the boy with a photon detector and repeat the above?

Edit: What happens if there are many photons and many people in the room (covering the whole room) then there is a slight probability of seeing light when the light got off, right?

Answer 1

When the photon hits a wall, it might be reflected (in a somewhat random direction) or it might be absorbed. If reflected it will encounter another wall and again it may be reflected or it may be absorbed. It takes about ten billionths (US billions) of a second for a photon to traverse a room. In a millionth of a second the photon, if reflected at every wall, would have encountered many many many walls. It will eventually be absorbed, in a very very short time.