In The World Of Losinanda (Completed)

CHAPTER SIX - The Child

The child found his master squeezed on a bench, leaning on the wall with his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open in an evident smile. He dreams good dreams.

He decided to sit on a bench in front of him, to not interrupt his sleep. He had found him in one of the corridors by the Forests of the world section in the Maktaba. The child remembered the first time he had entered the building that all the children of Zeal craved to see once they reached the prime age of four.

The children of Zeal were once the abnormal outcasts of their communities, with strange hair colors that matched their eyes, always seeing things that others did not understand, speaking of worlds that did not exist dreaming of abhorrent sins. They spoke too early, saw too clearly and heard too soundly; they were too smart for their communities. Their quick wits not to exclude their possessed nature only brought them jealousy and resentment from their neighbors.

The children's parents never felt sorry to see them go when the strange long bearded old men came to take them. He could remember his parent's absent stares and turned backs as the master had arrived and announced that he was there to take him with him. No-one had bothered to ask him who he is, where he was from or what was he going to do with their child. Best to close that door.

The master took longer to wake and the child decided to go wonder through the Maktaba. The huge building was very quiet that day, the occupants must have gone to the annual feast, the child thought. The master and him could not join as their assignment was of the top most priority in the city of makers.

The city was occupied with the children who were below the age of sixteen and the masters who were above the age of sixty, each child was paired with a master when they arrived; most of the times the master would be the one who took the child from his family. When he first arrived, he was given a new name and his second name was the first name of his master, it was like getting a new father; the master also had to introduce themselves with the name of their apprentice.

The child walked in between the shelves appreciating the chance to admire the Maktaba's center hall by himself. He walked through the winding corridor of shelves that had varied description of plants and forests that the child had never heard of; some shelves had branches jutting off its books, and others had been untouched and a tangle of shoots had grown to hold the books in place yet putting them in a difficult reach for a new reader.

The aisle lead to the only visible corridor on the first floor that went around the entrance hall, open for everyone who entered the Maktaba to see. The wall framing the grand hall was lined with shelves and all its spaces were covered with random books; he had occasionally but rarely seen anyone take up the long rolling staircase to the books around the wall shelves but it wasn't unseen.

The child decided to lean by the rails bordering the corridor, inspecting the comedic yet tragic statue at the center of the hall. The statue was of a middle aged yet youthful lady, she was curved in an assumed hurried position, her eyes wide in horror, catching a book falling off the tip of her right hand finger: meant to point out the importance of reading, and behind her, her left hand was holding a pen to remind them of keeping record. He wondered why the lady wasn't just standing.

"You're here, oh I heard the funniest stories from an old tree!" the old man's speech was interrupted with a flight of coughs, the child took some time to regain his composition, he had not heard the old man walk up behind him.

"Bewina's herbs are taking too long to rid me of this cough." The child knew the master had grown very old, making it harder for him to fight opportunistic diseases. He hugged his master not having seen him for a month, he had been lucky to get a generous, patient, humorous yet resourceful and knowledgeable teacher.