Читать книгу Collection of Stories - Igor Yevtishenkov - Страница 9

* EVERY CLOUD HAS A SILVER LINING

I started painting about two years ago, after my divorce. I wanted to forget about my previous life. There was no rush, so I did about two or three hours every evening, just to relax and pass some time – I used to come home from work, tired, but after painting for a few hours, I felt totally refreshed. Last week, some colleagues dropped in on me and saw my paintings. Some of them complimented me on them, so I gave them away without thinking any more of it. Yesterday, one of my colleagues introduced me to an art agent, who offered me the opportunity to display my paintings in his gallery. I was so thrilled, I hadn’t been able to calm down until now. I think that “every cloud has a silver lining’.

* STRENUOUS WORK

My boyfriend works as a programmer in a global software company. I envy him since he doesn’t have to clock on and clock off when he leaves work, unlike me in the hospital. He can stay at home and work in bed for weeks without seeing his colleagues and management at all! They have no machine that shows he has worked an extra long shift like me and that allows me to take time off at a later date. He has no shifts at all. I was planning to take a holiday in July this year but had to bring it forward as I was told July was going to be a very busy time for our hospital. I love my work but my hospital is understaffed and I hate to always be pressed for time. I find it almost impossible to find the time to pay more attention to the patients and talk to them a little bit longer than I do now, even though I feel that is an essential part of my job. Of course, I can chat for a few minutes but then I have to press on with my other duties. Our hospital hires many nurses from overseas. However, when their work permits run out after three years, they have to leave and the management has to fill staff vacancies again. Many nurses like me who are permanent staff for five or ten years burn themselves out and can’t stand it anymore. The strenuous work quickly wears them out and they quit, completely exhausted and devastated after five or seven years.

* SPARE TIME

I’m a teenager and still have a lot of spare time unlike my parents. So after school I usually hang out with my friends in the streets or in the park. My mum and dad say they used to knock around together for years and it was OK in their days. If they have free time today, they say they love whiling away their days going round the shops or just chatting to one of their old friends. Sometimes our family goes away for a weekend and mucks about at our old cottage in the countryside, enjoying nice weather or riding bikes together. Mum adores it because it’s out of the city and there is no one who can reach us. The few neighbours are very friendly and welcoming and we always get together for barbecue or a cup of tea in the evenings.

* A COMPANY EVENT

We were informed the sales conference would be coming around soon. So we had to hurry our sales reports along. To tell the truth, I couldn’t believe that the conference was coming up again already. Before I knew it, the last year had slipped away! There’s an awful lot of paper work to do leading up to the conference, given that it’s going to be held in our foreign branch. I hope it’ll break things up and make life a bit more interesting there. The excessive hype about our new products and the new marketing campaign completely passed me by. I was busy working out a new distribution channel in Brazil from scratch.

* EXAMINATION TIME

I’m happy we hit it off, folks, so I’m not going to drag out my speech. Only two weeks left before the exams start and we’re going to have to pull our socks up, if we want to pass. We’re going to set aside the next fortnight just for revision and have a cramming session on the eve of the exam. In other words, we’re going to free up some time by cancelling all non-exam lessons like PE and Arts. Are you up for it? All school sports matches will be held over until the exams are finished. We think it would be better than trying to fit revision in around sport commitments. The sports staff agreed that putting back those matches wouldn’t cause any serious problems. We won’t set schedules back too much so that we won’t be able to fit in all the matches before the end of the term. So now, put everything else out of your mind and concentrate on your revision. No more frittering time away – get down to some serious work.

* PREPARING FOR EXAMS

Sports staff said they had to bring the game forward to this Tuesday as school would be closed the next week. We started discussing how to prepare for the exams and Jim was dragging his speech out for an hour as if he were a headteacher. I thought I had ages to prepare for my exams but they have crept up on me in no time at all. We got together for a cramming session at Paul’s house and used his printer. Soon he asked us to try to eke out the paper since he had no more at home and it was late to pop out to buy some more.

* JOURNEY INTO THE PAST

I wish I could go on a journey into the past long before I was born. There is no time machine that could take me back to my childhood. I can only try to think back to what everyday life was like 50, 60, 100 years ago, before TV, before computers, before fridges and washing machines. It turns out that many of our devices date back to the early 20th century. I couldn’t imagine that old vacuum cleaner in our attic is just a leftover from a bygone era.

* A SINGLE MOTHER

I’m sorry to hold you up but you must sign these forms before you go in tomorrow. I’m happy the meeting is over. It dragged on and I got irritable too. It took me back to the times I worked as a secretary in the court. OK, thanks a lot! See you tomorrow!

Now I have to go home. I’ll have to drive ten miles at rush hour. Yesterday there was an accident and a pile-up of ten cars caused a long tailback. If there are no hold-ups today, I won’t get stuck in a traffic jam. So I must arrive by about seven o’clock. I have to call my kids and hurry them up. Their French lesson ran on longer than expected, so they won’t leave school till 4.30 p.m. and I’ll have to wait for them in the car. Then they’ll be complaining they can’t keep up with me on the way to the gym.

OK, I am having some time to sort out the post now… Three weeks passed by before I got a reply to my letter of complaint. Here it is. They got around to sending the reply. How can I plan anything with such hold-ups? Nobody knows what lies ahead. All I can do is just take it one day at a time.