The librarian

His years did not pass smoothly, he confirmed that during our session inside his private library in the north of Benghazi. The time indicated midnight. We were sitting between the heavy shelves, the books appeared with their covers under the dim lights like dictatorial guards, while the sea was roaring behind the darkness of silence. He was rearranging pieces of his life since his first birth. Under the dim light. Our conversation was. The volumes silent, with their leather covers and gilded letters that danced in the light flowing from the road through the library window or from the hanging lamp from the damp ceiling of the side corridor leading to the reading hall, gentle light dances. He told me that he lived long, as he said he witnessed a lot, I listened to him, to every word he uttered, we were inside his apartment that became a library containing about ninety thousand old volumes, when he fell silent about recounting his childhood, the Mediterranean continued to speak from afar, I listened to him too, to every wave that touched the city's soil, wave after wave, breaking foam, from the open window I saw a few stars twinkling pixel by pixel above the port as they have for centuries. "People have not only changed, but many things have changed."