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Get Published on Female First
At 27, I took my first plane flight, and I published my first book.
"No!"
Hans was wondering how to begin his latest story, but realized that the thread he first thought of, felt too trivial.
"What do you say we go for coffee, Hannah? "- he asked the woman who, for days back, was seating beside him while traveling by bus towards his workplace.
"I think you and I should go out sometime" - he said, like he wanted to assure himself that he really wished for that meeting.
"Go on, let yourself free, into the short sweet treats that will not harm us unless, of course, you drink bitter coffee, and order for both."
Hannah didn't move, neither an eyebrow, nor the tiny hairs under the nose, showing no signs that she was participating in the conversation.
"But I promise not to take any action that will make you fall in love with me."
"OK" - Hannah suddenly answered – "but only if you promise to read my future in the coffee cup, without trying to manipulate the facts about me that I pointed out in the past few days."
And so, Hannah and Hans went for coffee at the nearest café. His skills for reading the future in a coffee cup, viewed from the side of course, looked like this:
"There is something in the shape of a kidney ... "
"No way, how could you know that I have only one kidney? My goodness, nobody except my family knows. True, I have only one kidney, because I got a terrible infection 7 years ago, and the doctors had to remove it. "
"But Hannah, forgive me, I did not mean to offend you, or bring back the bad and painful memories. Forgive me, I never thought of your condition. These symbols should be understood figuratively, you should always interpret their hidden meaning ... The kidney is commonly associated with the phrase "as kidney in fat", which means that your personality is in prosperity, in an enviable situation ... "
"But, how could you also know that, at the last blood check, they found so many triglycerides that, they said, could lubricate all the joints of a truck. Ha! So now when you take this into account, the pain in the kidney is both logical and inevitable, because the blood cannot be well processed!"
"But, Hannah, don't get so excited, please. I really don't mean to upset you, so this is just child's play, a simple kind of social entertainment. How could I know all these things about you? Here, I will move to another symbol, to see how simple it is. Look, here I see... I see ... two eyes ... "
"Ohhh!" - Exclaimed Hannah - "My poor father".
"But what do these two eyes got to do with your father, Hannah ... "
"My father died last year after a serious eye surgery. For years he could not see the light of day. I hope that, at least he saw that one light we all see - in the end! "
"But, Hannah, these are some eyes that want to see you, eyes that are happy, eyes that cannot wait to meet yours Hannah... "
"Ahhh, that's what my poor father told me before he passed away - Hannah, if only our looks could have met for one final time ... "
"Hannah, pull yourself together Hannah... you mustn't let such a playful game disturb you... Don't you believe me that this is just a senseless way of killing time. Here, in order to reassure you, and drag you from your thoughts, I’ll tell you the next symbol I see here ... it is ... it is - shoes! …Sleek, salon, women's shoes."
"Nooooo! I almost forgot that, I have to pick up my shoes from the cobbler, because I broke the heel on the left one, on the head of my previous husband, whom I caught with some miserable slut in my bed..."
"So, you say that this is just a game? Don't you see that everything in the world is associated with an unavoidable cause - consequence relationship? If I didn't get that pain in my kidney, I wouldn't have figured out that I have high cholesterol, so I could have damaged my bile as well. If it wasn't for this illness, I would have never known what cranberry is, nor would I have started drinking beer, which I now enjoy in the utmost pleasure. If I hadn't drunk beer and got so drunk that night, I would have never caught my ex-husband, and my shoes would not have needed repair. "
"Ooohh ... Yes, it would have been a terrible loss - if those beautiful, elegant, salon shoes, could not have been repaired..."
Marta Markoska, born June 29th 1981, in Skopje, Republic of Macedonia.
Graduated the Department of Comparative Literature at the Faculty of Philology “Blaze Koneski” - Skopje.
Holds a Masters degree in Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies, from The Institute for Macedonian Literature - Skopje.
Markoska is a member of Association of Writers in Macedonia, and in the field of literature, she has published three books: a collection of poems entitled All Tributaries Flow Into My Basin (2009), a collection of short stories entitled Whirlpool in Bethlehem (2010) and collection of essays entitled Hyper Hypotheses (2011).
Marta Markoska is also represented in two Anthologies: Wind brings fine weather (June, 2012) and the latest Anthology of Macedonian Contemporary Short Story (March, 2012).
Her scientific studies and other articles (movie reviews, stories and poems, research papers and comments) were published in scientific journals Context and Cultural Life, in the magazines for Literature and Culture ACT and Pillar, in the electronic literary contest Electrolyte, in magazines Margin and Literary Hagiography, in text collections: Elite and Mass Culture and Rendering.
Marta’s short stories have also appeared in the Collections of Poetry and Short Stories of Young People from Former Yugoslavia (2007 and 2008).