I would love to be friends with all the people I've ever met on the train. With the bald and fickle gentleman from whom I learned the word "cubilou", with the boy with Tatar features and brown eyes who told me his whole life in sign language, with the girl who played the mandolin and gathered in the instrument's box money and hopes but especially with the young man who politely asked me if I had 5 lei. I replied that I did not, and then he asked me for permission to kiss me on the cheek. I offered him double.
Marina Borzescu
Happy with my catch, I didn't even notice that I was being followed. When I felt the gun pushed to my temple, a cold current shot my body from head to toe. The broken, thick voice shatters my ear, do you have it? What should I have? What do you mean what, idiot, take out everything you have, don't act crazy, I'll shoot you right away. I took out the keys and the two boxes. They're for my kids. His eyes were animal glassy, he took the vaccine boxes and got lost in the night. I had to look for another warehouse, the sound of broken windows urges me to go in that direction.
Arthur Ianoși
I had prepared intensely for this exam, sometimes refusing myself sleep, other times skipping the lunch break at work and hiding in the storage room to review. Everyone was handing in their papers, I was still writing, with my elbows on this bench that I had dulled in those 4 years. I was left alone with him. I still at my table, he sat cross-legged, lighting a cigarette. I'm finished, I say. You are finished, he says. How much money do you have on you? I make myself smaller, I'm starting to tremble. I do not have any. See you in the fall or come to the office in two hours. Change.
(Translated by Corina-Alexandra Belu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.