Open This Box!

by Mark Swain

Overview

Shanghai in the 1980's. A German man drowns his sorrows in the Seaman's Mission bar and chats to Jim and Carmen. The day after tomorrow they will take the Trans-Siberian Express train from Beijing to Berlin. They are excited, but their new German friend has some words of warning for them. Their food, books and other valuables will be confiscated by the over-zealous border guards who board the train at various points along the way through the wilderness of Mongolian and Siberia. It is almost impossible to avoid. Jim however, takes this as a challenge and devises an ingenious method of deception. On the train, other passengers can be heard remonstrating with the guards, but to no avail. Two Americans are arrested and removed from the train. Miraculously though, Jim's scheme works. The result, however is a matter of personal humiliation for Jim in front of his girlfriend.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940045522113
Publisher:	Tinderbox Publishing
Publication date:	11/16/2013
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	134 KB

About the Author

Mark Swain was born in Singapore in 1958, where his father was stationed in the RAF. He has lived in many countries, and as a young man found it hard to break the habit of a nomadic life. With a low boredom threshold, Mark has had dozens of jobs and several careers. This provides him with endless source material for short stories and is probably the prime reason for the sense of authenticity people see in his work. Studying Graphic Design at Hastings College of Art at 16, he ran off and joined the Army in search of adventure. Later he found himself travelling the world on the QE2 as a silver-service waiter and going to the Falklands war. Training as a TEFL teacher took him to Tokyo in 1984, where he met his wife Lorna. In 2008 Mark took a year out from a career in Risk Management to cycle 10,000miles from Ireland to Japan with his son. This life-changing decision resulted in them writing Long Road Hard Lessons, which became an Amazon bestseller. Mark and his wife Lorna have three grown-up children and live in Canterbury, Kent. There is not much in his life that he does without passion, although he will do anything to avoid having to dance or empty a kitchen bin. Asked about his ambitions, desires, or his sense of right and wrong, he says, “I trust in instinct. I simply grow towards the light.” Mark particularly enjoys the Short Story form, admiring American short story writers such as Raymond Carver, Richard Brautigan and Richard Ford as well as classic short story writers Franz Kafka and Anton Chekov. He is also a great admirer of George Orwell, John Steinbeck, Norman Maclean, Albert Camus and the contemporary travel writer Jonathan Raban. Two collections of Mark's own short stories - including the award winning story 'Special Treatment' - have been released by his UK publisher, Tinderbox Publishing Ltd along with the bestselling "Long Road, Hard Lessons" a non-fiction book with photographs and maps about a 10,000-mile life-changing cycle journey he made with his teenage son from Ireland to Japan. Mark is at home in England, but is constantly drawn back to Asia, Morocco, and to Dingle in Ireland.