Bassim
VIP Member
- Joined
- Mar 1, 2008
- Member Type
- Student or Learner
- Native Language
- Bosnian
- Home Country
- Bosnia Herzegovina
- Current Location
- Sweden
Would you please correct the mistakes in the third part of my text?
I arrived in the village one autumn morning. It was raining and the main street was almost empty but for a few people, who were not interested in talking to me. As soon as I mentioned the bag, they brushed me off or scowled as if I had insulted them. I went to the only pub in the village, a gray, stone building, which melted into the greyness of the day. Inside, a group of men were playing darts, while two old timers sat with their pints and were reading newspapers. They hardly acknowledged my greeting. I sat at the bar and ordered coffee and mineral water. Jeff, a bartender, is a man in his thirties, with short blond hair and a stud in his right ear. I asked him about the bag and he told me everyone in the village was annoyed with it. It was baffling that someone could be such a moron and waste his time and energy on coming to the village and leaving a bag every morning in different places.
“Yes,” Jeff said, “we had also the bags at our door. Three times.” “And what you did with them?” I asked. “There is a skip container down the street, the council had put especially for the bags. If you walk on you’ll see it. I threw them all in it.”
A middle-aged man who sat at the bar joined our conversation and was willing to talk to me on condition he remained anonymous. “Last year I had a secret love affair,” he said after he had taken a pull from his pint. “My wife, who I didn’t love any more, of course, knew nothing. Then one morning I opened the door and saw a bag with nails, and my blood froze. Her husband must have found out. He was going to kill me. I was going to die in the worst possible way, with nails hammered into my body. He was a carpenter and certainly knew how to use nails and a hammer. My mind was in turmoil. I panicked and called my lover. I told her we had to break up. She wondered why and, when I told her about the bag, she laughed and told me I was paranoid. There was not the slightest possibility her husband knew anything about our relationship because he was spending more than twelve hours on his work and wouldn’t have time for anything else.
“You don’t know what he is doing while he is working. Maybe he is spying at you?” I told her. She laughed again and called me a chicken. “I’d rather be a chicken than nailed to the board,” I replied, and she hung up, and never answered my calls again. Now I’m divorced, don’t have a mistress, but I have peace of mind.” I felt sorry for him, patted him on the shoulder and bought him a pint.
I left the pub and took a stroll down the street until I saw the container. It is painted white and has NAILS written in red letters on one side. I lifted the lid and my eyes looked at hundreds of white bags, some of which were torn by the tips of the nails sticking through the plastic. The sight and the moment overwhelmed me. Nowhere in the whole world could you find so many white, plastic bags with nails in one place but in this unassuming little village. I admired the person who had put so much effort and time to pick up all those nails, put them in a bag and then drive or walk many kilometres every morning to deposit them at someone’s door or in a garden, or some other place. It could have been a group or a woman, but I imagined him as a young man, a loner without friends and love. Maybe this was his way to communicate with others, a cry for help.
TO BE CONTINUED
I arrived in the village one autumn morning. It was raining and the main street was almost empty but for a few people, who were not interested in talking to me. As soon as I mentioned the bag, they brushed me off or scowled as if I had insulted them. I went to the only pub in the village, a gray, stone building, which melted into the greyness of the day. Inside, a group of men were playing darts, while two old timers sat with their pints and were reading newspapers. They hardly acknowledged my greeting. I sat at the bar and ordered coffee and mineral water. Jeff, a bartender, is a man in his thirties, with short blond hair and a stud in his right ear. I asked him about the bag and he told me everyone in the village was annoyed with it. It was baffling that someone could be such a moron and waste his time and energy on coming to the village and leaving a bag every morning in different places.
“Yes,” Jeff said, “we had also the bags at our door. Three times.” “And what you did with them?” I asked. “There is a skip container down the street, the council had put especially for the bags. If you walk on you’ll see it. I threw them all in it.”
A middle-aged man who sat at the bar joined our conversation and was willing to talk to me on condition he remained anonymous. “Last year I had a secret love affair,” he said after he had taken a pull from his pint. “My wife, who I didn’t love any more, of course, knew nothing. Then one morning I opened the door and saw a bag with nails, and my blood froze. Her husband must have found out. He was going to kill me. I was going to die in the worst possible way, with nails hammered into my body. He was a carpenter and certainly knew how to use nails and a hammer. My mind was in turmoil. I panicked and called my lover. I told her we had to break up. She wondered why and, when I told her about the bag, she laughed and told me I was paranoid. There was not the slightest possibility her husband knew anything about our relationship because he was spending more than twelve hours on his work and wouldn’t have time for anything else.
“You don’t know what he is doing while he is working. Maybe he is spying at you?” I told her. She laughed again and called me a chicken. “I’d rather be a chicken than nailed to the board,” I replied, and she hung up, and never answered my calls again. Now I’m divorced, don’t have a mistress, but I have peace of mind.” I felt sorry for him, patted him on the shoulder and bought him a pint.
I left the pub and took a stroll down the street until I saw the container. It is painted white and has NAILS written in red letters on one side. I lifted the lid and my eyes looked at hundreds of white bags, some of which were torn by the tips of the nails sticking through the plastic. The sight and the moment overwhelmed me. Nowhere in the whole world could you find so many white, plastic bags with nails in one place but in this unassuming little village. I admired the person who had put so much effort and time to pick up all those nails, put them in a bag and then drive or walk many kilometres every morning to deposit them at someone’s door or in a garden, or some other place. It could have been a group or a woman, but I imagined him as a young man, a loner without friends and love. Maybe this was his way to communicate with others, a cry for help.
TO BE CONTINUED
