Homage to a rubber stamp
I’m tidying up my desk this Sunday.
This rubber stamp I commissioned during my study year abroad in Damascus 2001-3. I stayed an extra year on my own accord.
It said in Arabic calligraphy: Maktabaḧ Abī Muqātil al-Atharī (“The Library of Abū Muqātil al-Atharī”). A different time, a different era...
I had stamped the insides of some of my books with it.
I tested whether it still worked. The rubber relief disintegrated. You can see the remains on the newspaper like charred ashes. It no longer bear a name from a distant past.
It’s a relic now. I’m careful with what I accumulate now. I don’t want any more items of sentimental value. They make you vulnerable. I want to economise with the remaining space I have. I will keep in a wooden storage box I made at school when 11, along with this empty staples box from the early 1980’s I presume and this cuneiform rendition of my name done at a freshers event. All snug like a coffin until resurrected by a curious mind in the future.