Open This Box!

by Mark Swain

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.

ebook

First published November 16, 2013

About the author

Mark Swain has a low boredom threshold. As a child he was something of a fantasist and compulsive liar. This, he says, has fitted him well to fiction writing. He has spent his life living around the world, collecting experiences via numerous jobs and several changes of career after initially attending Art College in Hastings, UK. He has only had one wife, however (25yrs) and they have 3 grown-up children. Mark became a full-time writer in 2009 after his young son persuaded him to take 10-months off to cycle 10,000-miles to Japan. It released him from running his successful management consultancy company. It also resulted in a prizewinning short story, published in 2010 followed by his first book - Long Road, Hard Lessons - in 2012. With a diverse kit-bag of memories from an eventful life and an out of control imagination, he has since published a book of short stories and has several other books as work in progress.