You either Have It or You Don't

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
Zara stroked the lump next to her and kissed the blonde fuzz on its head. Mom, I'm your and dad's light? Yes. But you're my candle. It's a different kind of light. One you have to keep lit. You know, sometimes some people have it, and others don't, some people still got it, and others don't anymore, what is that? Thread on the spool of life. So then they fall asleep somewhere on a cloud. Mom, what if there's still thread, but it breaks? You have to have someone by your side, like Daddy was, to knot it. A doctor? Or someone to teach you how to live again.

Titela Durnea
When the carriage stopped in town, there was such a commotion that you'd think all the sins were culminating. Crowds of people, arms full of sacks and baskets. The merchant couldn't stop dishing out his produce. He'd throw it over his shoulder, not looking to see who'd put and how much of it in their sack. He knew one thing: he had to share it. No one had told Vica, not even the bell tower, might be that the priest and the bell ringer were also trying their luck. Looking at the crowd that was leaving along with the empty carriage, he stumbled into a book. He picked it up, smiling.
 
 Laura Stanciu
In 2026, the rules of writing literary texts, articles and political speeches have changed. The world was fed up with AI. Old-fashioned Romanians were amazed. Texts had the comforting distinction between "there" and "their", they were written impeccably, with the right words. The word "like" was only put where it belonged. Artificial intelligence had eliminated the Ciolacuian, Daean and Iohannisian language. Perfection had generated depression. Artificial non-intelligence was created in a state of emergency. Thus humour, joy and stupidity reappeared.

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