Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts tagged “Amsterdam”

Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 6

Posted on June 26, 2014

The driver of the cab he hauled at the nearest main road took him to Hotel Krasnapolsky the scenic way. Matt didn’t mind. He moved away from the rearview mirror to a corner of the back seat and took off the beanie and itchy blond wig. He rubbed his hands over his crew cut to get rid of the feeling of thousands of ants crawling his skull. He stashed the beanie and wig in his backpack and pulled up the burgundy-colored passport. Jonathan Groen. He tasted the name of the man in his mouth. A Dutchman. The man who would give his life to free him. He fed the man’s last name into Google Translate. Groen. Green. If there would be a shred of prophesy in…

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 5

Posted on June 25, 2014

“You go ahead to the hotel. I’ll get him to bed,” Matt said. He lugged the man from the black car, bumped the door shut and patted on the roof. Only when the Uber rounded the corner, Matt searched the man’s pockets for keys. The air inside the ground floor apartment was saturated with lingering smells that hit his nose like a bowl of overcooked Brussels sprouts. Matt lodged the man into the couch and quickly searched the place. Furniture was sparse and what was around was worn. Paint peeled off the woodwork, whitewashed walls were smudged. It was no more than two small rooms and an open plan kitchen and it breathed the atmosphere of poverty and neglect. The bedroom held a wardrobe, a mattress on the…

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 4

Posted on June 24, 2014

It was past midnight when the bartender shouted something and started cleaning the bar. People emptied their glasses, paid their tabs and left. “Closing time,” Matt said. He pushed his chair back and got up, watching the man, who lolled against the window. He’d been asleep for the last hour or so, but no one had seemed to bother. “Thank God,” Victoria said. “This is worse than a fucking red-eye. I so need a drink. A real one.” She pushed her half-empty glass away from her, gathered her things and stuffed them in her handbag. “Go order a cab and wait outside. I’ll pay and see what happens to him.” Matt watched the snoring man from the corner of his eye. A drop of saliva trickled…

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 3

Posted on June 23, 2014

The bar was small, busy and dark, as if someone had switched off the sun. Guests hung around the wooden counter, obstructing the way for those who wanted to go the higher seating area in the back. The man wormed his way to the counter. Holding the copper railing with one hand, he raised the other to signal the bartender. The bartender acknowledge him with the slightest nod and drew him a beer. “Jonathan,” he said and then something more, in Dutch, with lots of harsh g’s, before he ripped off a sheet from a small notebook and jotted something down. He placed the tab in between a dozen others on the counter. Matt pushed Victoria past the heat and stench of people and beer, and past the man,…

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 2

Posted on June 22, 2014

Matt followed her nod with his gaze, to the man who trudged his way through the shoppers. Every now and again he looked up and when he did Matt caught a glance of his eyes. The cold shiver turned into an electrical surge that opened his throat and windpipe. As if he looked in a mirror before he’d put on the gray lenses. He stepped back into a shop’s portico, but pushed Victoria towards the man. “Do your magic,” he said softly. “Make it happen.” Victoria stopped the man. She put her hand on his arm with a possessiveness that made him stop. She asked him for the way to the Anne Frank House. For a moment it looked as if the man wanted to ignore her,…

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Daily Distraction: DARK FIBER – a serial thriller, episode 1

Posted on June 21, 2014

Matt let his gaze travel up the seventeenth-century gables to the Californian-blue sky hovering over the narrow shopping street that connected two canals. He tried to close his ears to Victoria’s incessant yapping about how she loved Amsterdam and how she loved the hot weather even if it was only May. Her every sentence started with an Oh My God, lined with ear-piercing cries of amazement. Matt hid his balled fists in his pockets. Why had he let her talk him into going after a bloody Dutchman and not an American? They could’ve found someone in Silicon Valley. The Bay area was overpopulated with losers. He shouldn’t have let her persuade him to walk heads in this crowded and cramped city. It imprisoned him,…

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Daily Distraction: Combing the Streets

Posted on June 4, 2014
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Tea with my dear friend and colleague writer Sieneke de Rooij never fails to end in a marvel of imaginative discoveries. This time, we met a the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam, a find an sich. Way back in 1921, the Lloyd started out as a hotel, but in the years after it also served as prison and a juvenile detention center before returning to her old use a few years back. Imagine staying in a room that once was the cell of a thief or a murderer… Every writer’s dream.

We sat outside until the sun chased us in. We climbed up to the second floor to the exhibition of the Street Comber. For over a year, the Street Comber made one collage per day out of small junk she found on the streets. The collages on display were gems of intricate genius. With every collage, a card listed when and where the Street Comber found what bits and pieces.
We circled through the exhibition over and over, every time discovering more stories in these tiny but wondrous finds. We left invigorated and with a heads full of new ideas.

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Categories: A Bit of Everything, Amsterdam Views, Books, Children's books, The Views

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