Hello everyone!
A friend of mine has just asked me for help. She wrote a short story
and wants me to translate it into English. I'd like to help her but my
English is not what I'd like it to be, but that's not the main
problem. I happen to be very busy at the moment. I welcome any help,
especially from the native speakers.
I'm forwarding you the text piece by piece. Today, I only translated
(or tried to translate) a small portion of it. As I was in a hurry, I
cannot by apologize for the many mistakes of spelling, grammar,
syntax, whatever you find incorrect. In quite a lot of cases, I'm
afraid, you'll witness the influence of my native language (especially
in the syntactic plan). Well, anyway, thank you once more for any help
you can offer me. Please, keep in minds this is quite urgent.
The first (rather small) portion of the text:
1. The Journey
She took a seat by the window, watching the wet runway abstractedly.
It was after a storm. Rain is rare in Barcelona and when it comes once
in a while, water has nowhere to flow, making deep puddles, which,
after some time in the sun, dry out by themselves. A regular flight
(for which she worked under normal circumstances) should take her by
air to Alicante, from there one more hour by rail to Castalla, her
home village deep in the mountains of Andalusia. It had been a few
years since she had moved here to Barcelona with here parents, but she
returned to the mountains whenever she was worried by something, when
she needed to come to different thoughts. In that well-known but wild
countryside as if she found the pieces of herself that got lost in her
strange life from time to time, stolen by someone or simply
disappeared inexplicably.
She opened up the Jamese Frazer to go on reading again trying to
focus on something else for a moment. Yet the very first paragraph on
the page she was reading lead her back like a boomerang to the
thoughts she wanted to banish by the reading.
"Things that once used to be in contact with each other still keep
influencing one another despite their direct link being interrupted."
She tried to carry on reading and concentrate, but never in her life
could she command her mind. She couldn't but let everything flow
freely. The whole afternoon recurred in her head, all the years, the
connection that had been broken.
When she was leaving a few hours ago, she didn't feel a drop of
anything warm in him. She didn't feel anything. In his expression, in
his behaviour, there was just a chill. She tried to find at least some
emotions in him. Understanding, grief, melancholy, joy, hatred –
anything... There must have been something, but he seemed so empty at
that moment – like a Spanish bin at four a.m. (the Spaniards have
their bins taken out essentially around three a. m. In the heat of day
the litter would stink miles away). That nothing was as deep as the
nothing below her legs. She even began to be sick of the depth. The
plane had just taken off. It was a young man who made her come round:
"Miss?"
"Yes?"
"You're sitting on my safety-belt."
"Oh, I'm sorry.
[to be continued]
Thanks again!
Best wishes,
Petr
P.S.: By the way, those of you who can speak Czech, I can send you the
original version, of course.
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