heading upstream with Herodotus

"... they all say that the earth is divided into three parts, Europe, Asia, and Libya, whereas they ought to add a fourth part, the Delta of Egypt..."

The library of religious and cultural history. Deserted, dusty and quiet. Sometimes there is a librarian there who gives me a discreet nod. Sometimes the only living soul is a dachshund, walking around with claws clicking against the floor.

I come here because it is the only department of the university library that has a copy of The Histories by Herodotus. And you are not allowed to take it out, so I sit in the quiet and read it for a few hours at a time, taking notes and listening to the clicking of claws. Knowing that just outside the dusty windows, the slow river is flowing by and that I could be sitting on the river bank in the sun.


"With regard to the sources of the Nile, I have found no one among all those with whom I have conversed, whether Egyptians, Libyans, or Greeks, who professed to have any knowledge, except a single person. He was the scribe who kept the register of the sacred treasures of Minerva in the city of Sais..."

What about the sources of the Aura, peacefully flowing past the window? One day I'm going to pack my bag, leave the libraries and go explore.