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How
I met “Glimmer’s Train” for the first time. |
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Hi there, Do you know how I found out about your magazine? It’s a story… a funny one. One day I woke up with a
strange urge: I desperately wanted to go to Like it often happens in life,
when we are wishing for something and working hard to get it, our wish may
suddenly come true. Even though I have to admit, the solution sometimes comes
from the most unexpected place, just as with my trip to Somehow magically I found all
the needed bodies to fill up the bus because everyone seemed to know who
these mariners were and many wanted to see the game. We left So, I found myself in the middle of the crowd of baseball fans and it felt strange. First – I hate big crowds. Second – I hate organized crowds. Third – I hate “excited-out-of-control” crowds. Fourth – I hate watching other people play sports (I’d rather play the sport myself). Fifth – I’m not a big fan of baseball. I, actually, never heard of that sport (or game) in my life up until that day, when my friend asked me to help him get the fans together. I felt like a worm, that was trying to get to the other side of the highway, but got trapped in the middle, by heavy traffic. I thought I was going to die there. The thought of spending another hour or more in the huge stadium without earplugs (no, I’m not eighty nine, I’m just from a quiet place) in clouds of this sticky-sweet popcorn smell threw me into insouciance and apathy. All the fans from - Ticket! Ticket for sale! – I yelled with all my might and caught a whole bunch of looks immediately. Strangely the two people who I thought were about to approach me, turned around and looked away. Someone, whom they had seen before me appeared as though out of nowhere, as though by magic. It was a huge cop, erect, straight, with broad shoulders, and a decent size belly. It looked as though he was hiding a school globe, under his baby blue uniform. His face was round and red and he did not look friendly at all. - Ticket for sale… - I repeated addressing him with a quiet voice as he brought his face so close to mine, that I could smell his sweat and his aftershave. - Ma-am, - he was speaking quietly, mostly with one side of the mouth, - it’s a criminal offence, ma-am. You cannot sell tickets here like that. - What’s wrong with selling a ticket? – I wandered forgetting my husband’s advise to never argue with cops and never questions them. - Right now you are committing a criminal offence, ma-am, - he repeated in some strange very threatening half-whisper, - if you have a ticket to the game, you have to go and see the game. A confession: I have a pathological fear of all people in uniform in all countries in which I have lived so far. They intimidate me and make me think, that they know everything about myself better than I do, that they know some dark secrets of mine, that I myself have forgotten about and they can use it against me at any given time. Often, when I see a cop, I start thinking I committed a crime of some sort and for some reason have forgotten about it, but the cop knows everything and is going to bring me to justice. When I see a cop, I start remembering the ice-cream cones I stole from the fridge at the age of six, when my grandmother wasn’t looking, about all those broken dishes I hid in the garbage and never told my mom about, about skipped classes in grade five and within seconds I’m overwhelmed by the guilt. That’s exactly what had happened when this giant cop in his baby blue uniform started talking to me. The words “criminal” and “offence” made the matter only worse. Again I felt small, like a worm and in addition to that – guilty. - Sorry. – I replied. – I didn’t know that. I guess my thick accent helped me to look like an ordinary idiot and the cop removed his face from my “bubble”. - The entrance to the stadium is there, ma-am. – He pointed with his huge shovel hand and folded his play dough arms on his great big belly. Then he took one step back, showing me, that he was not going to move until he sees me go in. So I went. I knew darn well where the entrance to the stadium was, but going through there was not part of my plan and I was not going to give up. Likely the further away from the cop I went, the stronger I felt and before long I spotted two characters that were following me all this time. As cops “charms” faded away and I felt in control again I stopped. The two – one short with kind sorry looking blue eyes and an enormous amount of bright red zits on his face, the other – tall, skinny with a long neck, sunken shoulders and a half-open mouth stepped closer. - How-much-for-the-ticket? – The zitted one asked quickly, almost in one word as though trying to exercise a tongue twister. - Twenty-dollars. – I replied as quickly as he asked without hesitating a moment. I didn’t really know how much I
should have charged. I got the ticket for free and had no clue what the price
was. I still don’t know why I said twenty. It sounded like a lot of money to
me at the time. Firstly because we very recently immigrated to My short follower made a quick, swift, motion and in a split second the ticket I was holding in my hand appeared in his instead I was holding twenty dollars, American. My business partner vanished into the crowd. The long and skinny one still stood there with his mouth half-open and did not seem to be extremely disappointed with not getting a ticket. I pushed myself out of the crowd, which was becoming thicker and thicker, noisier and noisier by the minute, took some random street and walked away. I felt happy, light, bouncy, scintillant, gleam. Life was good. I spent a wonderful time in Twenty dollars turned out not to be a real
wealth worth of a King’s lifestyle. After a cup of Starbucks coffee, an
ice-cream cone and few coins thrown into a hat of young busker, who played
guitar in Downtown, I realized that the money was almost gone. I was standing
by the entrance of an old book store and decided to pop in before heading
back to the bus. I spent some time in the store, enjoying the smell of old
books and soft music, I browsed through art section and magazines and in one
of the baskets found two issues of your “Glimmer train”. I had just enough
money to get both of them and so I did. I enjoyed them a lot and my way back
home with the two magazines seemed twice as short as my trip to A few days ago I googled your magazine and found out about the competition of young writers. The deadline was two days away and I decided to translate one of my recent works into English and submit it. My daughter helped me to brush up the text and made sure I wouldn’t spell “kettle” as a “cattle” and “cutie” as a “quite”. It’s been done before. I blessed them submitted them just a few hours before the midnight of November 30. This is despite the fact that I do not like the concept of competition in anything involving creativity. Thank you very much for your magazine. It is truly inspiring and friendly. Katherine Andersen-Schokalsky P.S. When we came to Thank you and please try to
read my stories with a nice can of Thank you again. Katherine |
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