Zu den Weihnachtstagen im letzten Jahr war ich in Berlin und habe mich auch ein wenig in Buchläden umgeschaut. Da ich seit geraumer Zeit dabei bin, meine Englischfähigkeiten und -kenntnisse aufzubessern, interessierten mich dabei vor allem englischsprachige Bücher. Eine kleine Perle entdeckte ich im Buch 642 Thing To Write About, das von der San Francisco’s Writers‘ Grotto herausgegeben wird. 642 Schreibanregungen plus eine Menge Platz zum Schreiben der eigenen Gedanken und Geschichten. Das ist meine kleine Englisch-Challenge für das Jahr 2025.
Unter dem Schlagwort 642 Things veröffentliche ich deshalb in unregelmäßiger Folge ausgewählte Texte von mir. Heute kommen die ersten.
1) You are an astronaut. Describe your perfect day.
The alarm rings. It’s half past six. The new belt worked very well last night. I didn’t fall out of my bed onto the floor of the space station. Being in a good mood I drink my usual cup of coffee with a straw. After my morning hygiene routine I join my colleague at the central unit. He is happy to see me smiling because yesterday I grimaced after i found myself located on the floor in the middle of the night. Everything works well in our flying home. Before I work on my usual experiments I have a look out of the windows. Watching our flight around the earth on the one side and the deep space on the other side always makes me sentimental. At lunch the food processor serves cucumber sandwiches, which I love! After the prescribed workout routine in the afternoon I am served some delicious pasta. Me and my colleague enjoy the evening playing Scrabble. Some notes in my diary and some sips of wine help me end this perfect day. I go to bed with the hope that the belt will also do its job well.
2) Write a scene in which a woman is fired after only a week on the job. Just a week earlier, the same person who is now firing her was very persuasive in convincing her to take the job.
Love is a battlefield: What Pat Benatar sang is what Julie is feeling. A week before she was full of happiness and joy because she got the long awaited job. It was not an ordinary job she was looking for. To be responsible developing the quality assurance of this small hospital – that ought to be the right challenge after studying nursing management for the last four years. And there was something special beyond this attractive job opportunity. Her wife was the nursing director. To combine job and private life seemed to be a wonderful opportunity to show their love in public and with that to set a statement for equal rights. Her wife found this also to be good choice and convinced her to apply for the job. Only a week later Julie stands before the ruins of her marriage and her professionally future. They had several disputes in front of colleagues. They screamed and cried not only at home but also at work. All the hidden unbridgeable differences between them came crawling on the surface. Julie was looking for a satisfying life, she found a war. Her love is a battlefield.
3) Write a short story that is set in Argentina in 1932, in which a teacup plays a crucial role.
Buenos Aires – the city that never sleeps. Isabel sat at the kitchen table, looking out of the only window of her small flat. She watched the hustle and bustle on the street with feelings of happiness and freedom. Isabel grew up in a small Argentinian town a few hundred kilometers away. With great luck she got honored with a scholarship to visit the university in the capital. A young woman in a big city with almost nothing in her suitcase but a family heirloom – the teapot and teacup of her great great grandmother. For others it was without value, maybe, but for her it was like having the whole family in her small flat. She was looking forward to working in a small tea shop. Tea was one of the areas where Isabel was very good at. With the salary she would be able to pay for the expenses of daily life, and the discounted tea she was allowed to buy at the shop. For that was the deal between her mother and her: To take the tea set only if she used it with her tea daily – a precious commodity at that time in Argentina.