[New-Poetry] Working stories

[James Cervantes]

Endemic, isn't it?
- Jim

On Mon, Sep 8, 2008 at 5:02 PM, Anny Ballardini
<anny.ballardini at gmail.com>wrote:

> Several years ago they asked me to open a reading point in the tourist
> resort where my parents lived and where I was living. I will spare the
> details (worth some interesting fiction, at least that is the way I write
> fiction) and after a year or so, the reading point had become a sort of
> after school meeting point for the kids of the place where they could do
> their homework, and ask me to help them. The reading point depended on the
> main library in a village some 30kms away. In the said library, quite a big
> structure on two floors, built thanks to the legacy of a man who had spent
> his life working in the States, was managed by a librarian (an old Marxist
> who had opened the original library with his own books), a diabetic (a 22
> year-old girl, niece of the mayor who kicked the pc to switch it on [I'll
> never forget that], and received the job because she suffered from diabetes)
> and a 55 or so year old handicapped man who could barely walk.
>
> The librarian had recently been appointed President of the cooperatives,
> was also a free-lance journalist, and was not able to cope with the amount
> of work. He sort of asked me if I could help him out. Which is what I did. I
> worked my eight – nine – ten hours and during the lunch break (some 2 or 3
> hours) I stayed inside the library trying to find the books the diabetic put
> on the shelves to move them to their right places. She did not know the
> alphabet and letters like j – k – w – y – x could be found anywhere.
>
> Nobody ever paid me for this extra-work. Finally there were the elections
> and the village was not able to elect a new mayor. In cases like these, the
> government sends an official representative until the people of the place
> are able to elect someone. The State Official asked me about my salary, and
> it is thanks to him that I started receiving some money. Some six seven
> months went by, when the Librarian told me that it was time for him to
> retire, and besides that, he was not able to follow his many activities any
> more, that he was going to resign and to suggest I should be the director,
> seen the quality of my work and dedication.
>
> After a couple of days I received a letter by the new mayor, he was
> thanking me for all what I had done, reminded me that in over a year I
> hadn't taken the 33 days holiday I was supposed to take, and concluded by
> saying that my service was thus terminated. The library was closed. In Italy
> when public institutions need to employ someone they have to call for
> "Public competitions" which are open exams for public offices. According to
> Law they were forced to call one, they did six months later, as soon as my
> name appeared on the list of the candidates, the examination was postponed.
> This happened twice. I finally came to live here in Bolzano. The new chosen
> Director was (guess guess) a relative of the new Mayor, and guess how many
> people started working at the library, twelve instead of four, as we did
> when I worked.
>
> --
> Anny Ballardini
> http://annyballardini.blogspot.com/
> http://www.fieralingue.it/modules.php?name=poetshome
> http://www.moriapoetry.com/ebooks.html
> I Tell You: One must still have chaos in one to give birth to a dancing
> star!
>
>
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