Sixty Seven.
Thomas kissed Saran’s cheek. She was still sleeping and he didn’t try to wake her up. He would only be gone for a few days. Picking up his backpack, he left her apartment and walked down the stairs. He was supposed to meet Golovin, the chief archeologist of the mission, in front of the history department in half an hour. They were going to find the long forgotten Dreaming Chambers that had once made Samarqand famous and had attracted Alexander the Great, who believed they would cure his long-lasting depression. Thomas secretly laughed at Richard and his cronies, probably desperately trying to get a visa to come back and find Alexander’s tomb. He hoped they would be watching TV when the documentary about the Dreaming Chambers’ extraordinary discovery was shown.
Before hopping on the bus, he took the skeleton credit card out of his pocket and walked towards an open garbage can. Nearby, a little boy in rags was kicking a ball against a wall. Thomas had often seen him in the street and he knew he was a street urchin. He hesitated for a few seconds, holding the card above the smelly garbage-can, then dropped it.
When he climbed into the bus, he saw the kid double over the garbage-can and pick up the card. As the bus started, the kid ran in the opposite direction, almost knocking down an old woman who, raising her fist, angrily cursed him.
“Watch where you’re running, Temudjin, you little bandit!”
About the Author
Seb Doubinsky is a bilingual French writer, born in Paris in 1963. An established writer in France, Doubinsky has published a series of novels covering different genres, from classical literature to dystopian fiction, as well as a few poetry collections. He currently lives in Denmark, with his wife and his two children, where he teaches French literature, culture and history at the University of Aarhus.
The Song of Synth Page 17