Firewatching by Russ Thomas

Author:Russ Thomas [Thomas, Russ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK

day five

15006 pageviews – 5 posts, last published Sun

18-Sep – 3412 followers

The Library at Alexandria, circa 48BC

Plutarch tells us of the siege of Alexandria, how Julius Caesar was forced to set fire to his own ships, the fire ultimately spreading to the docks and on through the city to the great library, with its 400,000 scrolls, parchments and tablets.

You’re no great historian but you do like reading. What would you have done without the library? You spent more time there than anywhere. It was warm and dry, and generally the librarians left you alone. Provided they didn’t notice you. But then you were always good at hiding, weren’t you?

Imagine what it must have been like for those bearded scholars, their togas flapping in the wind fanning the flames ever higher. Think of how much human learning was lost and never recovered? Perhaps one of those scrolls eaten by fire might have led to the early discovery of gravity. Or the invention of penicillin. How different human history, but for a single spark?

What knowledge was destroyed in the grubby little offices of a solicitor? Less important perhaps, but you don’t want to take the chance. Admit it though, your heart wasn’t really in it. Especially after your visit to the old woman’s cottage. The scream didn’t even fade this time, just pulsed in syncopated counterpoint with the crackle and roar of the solicitor’s case files. You didn’t even stay to watch. Outside, the flames dancing behind the windows seemed dull and grey. You knew at once it wouldn’t catch. You don’t even know for sure the solicitor was involved. Did he know?

The schoolteacher knew. You can still see her, standing in her little cottage, her back arched, her face contorted in pain. She saw you, you know that, don’t you? She saw you peering in through the window and she knew. And you knew that she knew. Then her eyes rolled up into her head and she dropped, falling in slow motion, head crashing down against the stone hearth.

That’s exactly how she went. A life extinguished. A snuffing out of all that past. All that knowledge and experience, all those long, long years, gone in an instant.

Consumed by fire.

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