Scarecrow

Ana Vlad
It was useless to capture them, to mumble in the garden, chasing them away all they long, the birds would eat everything. She would come in the house only in the evening, when no chirp, no flap could be heard. They ruin everything, we will starve to death, she would start over again when it was not even daylight and they would see her moving more and more slowly and her gaze becoming more and more fixed. The day she could not get out of bed, straws were growing from her wrists. Take me in the garden, were her last words. They leaned her against a pole, with a hat on her head. From that moment on, no birds.

Magdalena Daminescu
In the evening we did not want to go to bed, we jumped on the bed as if on trampoline, we competed to see who jumps higher. Poor mum did not dare to spoil our fun, grandma stayed close to us, with her skirts rolled up like a safety net. When the party was in full swing, it would show up at the window, a red tongue and some empty eye sockets. For a long time we did not find out what it was, but it had the intended impact and a couple of evenings we behaved like the saints on the walls until we forgot about the scarecrow and started over. One day, rummaging around the attic, I came across the gas mask.
 
 Amalia Melnic
I sipped a vial quickly and I went to sleep. I was hoping to do skanderberg. One with God. One with Satan. The bet was already made. On my soul. This game amused me, I did not even care where I was going to spend the eternity. And I laughed all night, felling serene that I was escaping my punishing life. I swinged. Up. Down. Up. Down. I did not die. In exchange, I got a new even more despicable life. I haven't felt anything since that night ended. I am full of straws. I yell at the crows and they poop on me.

(Translated by Irina Vild / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)