The Best of ZS

I forgive you one sin

About the book

I Forgive You One Sin

The first part of “I Forgive You One Sin” contains eight stories (1-8) ‘Divine retribution’, ‘Oh, Those Men…’, ‘A World-Class Invention’, ‘A Curious Romantic Relationship‘, ‚Why Aren’t We on the Ground Already?’, ‘A Treasured Son‘, ‚The Scientist‘, and ‘The Uranium King‘, and eight contemplations of passengers in an airplane during fictitious flight on various situations in their lives, when their actions were not always honest and when deceitful intentions, undignified behaviour towards a loved one, and rampant, sometimes perverse thoughts prevailed.

The element that links these stories together are problems with the aircraft’s landing gear during the descent and a priest who attempts to put the passengers’ soul at ease in this grave situation by proclaiming that, in the name of Providence, he is authorized to forgive each passenger one sin of their choice.

What, then, is the sin each passenger would like to have forgiven?

Working stay at the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria

In the stories (9-11) ‘I Stood at the Epicentre of the First Nuclear Explosion in the Former Soviet Union’, ‘The Scents of India’ and ‘A Posthumous Voyage down a Mountain Stream’ the memories are captured by the author during the period of his work at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.

Study at the Faculty of Nuclear and Technical Engineering, Czech Technical University, Praha

Two of his experiences during the university studies in Praha ZS tried to capture in stories (12-13) ‘The First Year on the University Campus’, and ‘I’m Innocent, I’m innocent...‘

Pub narration

Impulse to stories (14-17) ‘A Story from the Snack Bar’, ‘But it’s boiled!’, ‘Stop, I’m thirsty!’ and ‘The Ford Submarine – An Easy Guide to Losing Your Car‘, came from pubs in Praha, which the author liked to visit during his studies but also later.

We see it differently

In the story (18) ‘Me and Grandad – a parallel, or how my 10-year-old grandson saw me years ago’, a possible different view of the life situations of the grandfather and his grandson is described on the basis of ZS’s own experience.

That really happened

‘When Love Moves a Name, not a Mountain’, (19), is a short story describing the origin of the author’s first name. Similarly, more recently, freely treated, is the story ‘The Driving Licence’ (20).

The reins given to author‘s imagination

The remaining stories (21-25) ‘The Dilapidated Beauty’, ‘To Hold You Close and Die’, ‘The Half-naked Moving Target’, ‘A Damp Lap in the Bohemian Forest’ and ‘The Potatoes are in the Field, Permission to Plough Granted’, sometimes a little absurd, and focused differently, are pure fabrication of the author. However, this doesn’t mean that they cannot remind readers of similar situations.