1 The gift

I live in a one bedroom apartment, the dormitory and the living room are not small. The living room it's clean and neat and even smells good. My room smells like old paper, sweat, and instant noodles. There are some books outside of my room in bookcases (The cool hardcover ones that have colors that match), but almost everything is inside the room: in the desk, in the closet, on the floor. Right now in my place are two hundred and fifty-two books that I stole, bought, or received and I haven't read yet, plus the ones that I did read.

My first acquisition: Twelve Wanderer Stories, written by G.W. Duke. I stole that one from my grandpa, I was eleven years old.

My last acquisition arrived this afternoon: The Book of Sand, written by Noe Nagar, translated by E. Renzi. I inherited this one from Raymond Lowry. I met him in college, he was already old at that time, seventy something I think. We knew each other because in those years I used to go to all the classes, workshops, everything that has something to do with literature, and one day I went to his class. He was talking about romantic literature: Alfred De Musset, Victor Hugo, Balzac, Pombo... It was a funny day, an old man reading poems in front of fifty students —everybody checking their phones—. He needed help with the computer, and I ended up helping him. When the class finished we talked a little. He was a quirky guy: small, skinny, cockeyed and very funny, I mean hilarious. He was also gay, I learned that a year later when a girlfriend told me, that girl used to have some sugars so she knew the gossip of the old guys in campus. I was surprised, I always noticed that the old man was very kind, I mean almost too much, but he never tried anything so we always were cool.

Anyway, one time he told me that he found this book, a treasure he said. He bought it at the "Rendón Bookshop" downtown. It was called The Book of Sand, it was a novel —he said it was a novel but he didn't really knew what it was, only that it was fiction—. "It seems the kind of book that it´s described in Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. It is the encyclopedia of one cosmos, a book that has inside many books, all the books, it's a bible, it's a grimoire, it's a monstrous thing" he said that time with a serious over dramatic tone just to let out a laugh two seconds later and change the subject.

Old Lowry died last week, he didn't leave much: the few books he wrote, an apartment, a restaurant —that his nephews are fighting about— and his personal library that was donated almost completely to the university.

This afternoon The Book of Sand came to my door: a late gift from Raymond. I have not read it yet.

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