Mixed Spices

By Angelina Souren

Verbal jazz! That's what Mixed Spices is. An anthology of flash fiction. Very short stories.

Some of it is reminiscent of the style of Spike Milligan and Donald Barthelme. Some of the material is downright hilarious or as light as a fairy tale, some of it is dark and gloomy. And some of it may initially trip you up the way zen koans do, with their many different possible interpretations.

The author is a geologist and marine biogeochemist who is into bioethics sensu lato. She is also professional writer who has written for example for the company Arcadis as well as an author of non-fiction. She's a Dutchwoman who's lived in balmy Florida and is now based on England's south coast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Angelina Souren
• Release date: Aug 26, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466098596

Angelina Souren

Angelina Souren is a highly versatile person who used to work in tourism and hospitality in Amsterdam, quit her job in her mid-twenties and turned herself into an earth and life scientist. She’s emigrated several times and has carried out fieldwork in yet other countries. These days, she mostly focuses on inclusivity and diversity, including aspects like workplace bullying and neuroscience, as well as on bioethics sensu lato.She is based in Portsmouth in England, has previously lived in Florida and spent a large chunk of her adult life in Amsterdam. She was the eldest of three daughters whose mother passed away after a long illness (vastly metastasised breast cancer) when all three siblings were still very young and her father had a severe borderline personality disorder, so she has always needed to be very practical.Angelina became self-employed in 1997; her siblings also run their own businesses. You can pay her a visit at angelinasouren.com for more background.She started writing stories in primary school, was on her school’s first newspaper team and already managed to get a letter published in a national magazine when she was still a teenager.Angelina has since written and edited professionally for clients from all over the word, for example for publishers and high-end engineering consultancies like Arcadis. She’s published several books, both fiction and non-fiction:Mixed Spices (flash fiction)FCQ (flash fiction, partly overlaps with Mixed Spices)Crunchy Peanuts (flash fiction)We need to talk about this - about the new eugenics (non-fiction)Is cruelty cool? (non-fiction)She is a former board member of the Environmental Chemistry (and Toxicology) Section of the Royal Netherlands Chemical Society as well as former editor-in-chief of its newsletter and scientific yearbook, a former member of the board and of various committees of a Dutch foundation for women in science and technology called NIMF, and former associate editor of the international newsletter of the US-based Geochemical Society.Fun facts about her? She flew a small aircraft for a few minutes, during a flying lesson for which she had a discount coupon, before she learned how to start a car. She sometimes sports blue, pink or turquoise hair and her hair is currently brightly henna-red.

Book preview

Mixed Spices

By Angelina Souren

Copyright 2011 Angelina Souren

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-1-4660-9859-6

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Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

It is not

The tomato growers

The girl on the moon

Turning tides

Once upon a time in the east

Lousy birthdays

No room

When the mind is empty

Rock-solid

Reggae peanuts

Close enough

Polka dot dancing

Chocolate cherries

Perspective

The wall

Magic

Like a parrot's feathers, not

About this anthology

About the author

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It is not

(October 2008)

Once upon a time I came upon a mountain stream, and before I knew it, I'd tumbled in. We tumbled and twisted together, the mountain stream and I, and it was like a dance, a wonderful dance, like a crazy embrace.

You're clean again said the mountain stream, clean enough in any case, and that is close enough. I've washed it away, your life's grime, grime from the past. Now go and be like new again and then there was a waterfall and I bounced and I bumped and landed on the shore again while the mountain stream went on to do its thing.

I don't know exactly where it is now, but I know vaguely, and that is close enough.

Whenever I need to be clean again, renewed again, I can think of the mountain stream, imagine it tumble, here, there, everywhere, anywhere where gravity takes it.

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The tomato growers

(October 2009)

Once there were two tomato growers. One was called James and the other one Gordon.

Gordon was very disappointed with his tomatoes. Every day, he would go to them and water them and check how much they had grown. Sadly, his tomatoes stayed pitifully small. He would twist them and squeeze them to feel if they were at least ripening a little bit, and accidentally dislodge one from the vine on occasion. It would drop to the ground and rot away.

Gordon felt something had to be done. So he purchased the best fertilizer he could find, with the right amount of potassium and all the other nutrients a tomato could wish for, and placed it in front of his tomatoes. He told them: If you grow really really well, I will give you this fertilizer as a reward. This shall be your motivation. It seemed to have no effect