Central 2030

As the last of the books turned into ash, for tomorrow to become dust, she smiled; a warm, yet scornful, smile laid across her generous lips for a brief moment. The macabre dance of the black hooded figures gyrating with no articulation nor fluidity around the burning pyre of books set alight in the icy forecourt of what once had been the proud Central Library, for then to become just The Library as the suburbs had succumbed, one after the other, to the marauding fundamentalist gangs of some sort or the other, crawling out of the crevices of the city, or become closed fortresses in all senses, had been going on for several hours as more and more books had been extricated from the labyrinthic galleries of the compound to feed the raging fire by the frenzied shapes masquerading as defenders of whichever truth that was in vogue that day, drunk in the sureness of their fanaticism and oblivious to the smouldering blackened wrecks of vehicles, broken glass and debris surrounding them. She couldn't remember exactly when the raids had begun; perhaps they had after the great flood, when a large section of the library had to be abandoned to the muddy and poisonous waters, loosing many valuable books to the advancing hordes of rats, an irreplaceable 1875 edition of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra's "Don Quijote de la Mancha" between them. The raids had started to be more and more frequent as to become another regular feature of the times to endure, just as the savage storms that periodically ravaged the city, and always they were perpetrated by some sect claiming to be fighting for the purity of their creed and the salvation of society, to expurgate the shelves of degrading and contaminated books and other items. Even cookery volumes had suffered the indignity of becoming ash, as they were deemed to be spreading impure and improper food. The globalisation of insularity was what had happened in the last few decades, she reflected, as mass global communication networks had become widely and cheaply available; ironically, within the library itself, she added to herself as she shrugged her shoulders, it was a cold and wet night in spite of the fire, but it was not the cold that made her do it, or shiver. The existence of these networks was now being threatened by the very unforeseeable forces that had been unleashed through them; even the equipment which once had stood in the library had become a target for the gangs, either having been smashed or wrenched away a few years before as they had fought for their control, the librarians impotent in their rage.

Her inquisitive clean cut eyes were surveying the dislocating scene flaming before her when she felt the gently touch of a hand on her shoulder, as if saying to her that she was not alone, that others were there too, watching, crouching, waiting, like unresolved felines.

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