It was in my early teen years, a Saturday. The sun was setting, and our new neighbours had finished moving in. A short, wiry boy came to introduce himself, showing off his gymnastic ability and boasting about how he was two grades higher than me.

He was usually found twiddling a green coloured maize-shaped harmonica, or else head-over-heels, walking on his hands. He started to tell me soon enough about how close their house used to be to the national library and the movie theatres, in present-day Arada District. Noting my keen interest, he promised to show me where the library was. The movie was out of the question, as it involved money.

Being downbeat, I thought of showing off myself. I took out my collection of bubble gum stickers full of famous actors. He went through them, acting not that much surprised. Then he went to their house and brought his set.

His were few, yet action-packed, unlike mine which are of portraits. He had watched most of the movies the pictures were taken from. He knew who was who. I just thought mine was a pile of rubbish, as I could not relate them to anything. I asked him if he would swap some with mine.

He counteroffered a game, with the stickers as prizes. By the time it was over, the whole of my cards had ended up in his hands. I started to cry. He said he would rescind his pledge, as I was behaving in a way unbecoming of an 'Arada,' an Amaric word close in meaning to ”sleek.”

But all was forgotten when the long-awaited day came. I was taken to a place where everything was big, beautiful and numerous – the National Archives & Library of Ethiopia. The trees, the gardens, buildings and finally the books, with their typical bookish smells, were a dream.

Hats off to my friend, I got one of the few most coveted reads. I dove into the deepest ocean, in a disquieting reflective life one can imagine a new world. A quantum literature travel to a future with an otherwordly technology; the story of a scientist giving his son through a transplant a set of shark gills.

It took quite long to take me out of the ocean of Alexander Belayev’s ”The Amphibious Man,” in an Amharic translation. Yet there was no other book to set alight my or my friend’s kindled science passion. It was the tragedy of having too few places for reading.