Today I want to end it with a dot. Not a colon, because I don't need any explanation. I've had enough of your frequent ellipsis that used to pause both your thoughts and your life. I'm tired of your quotation marks you used whenever you were talking to me, as if I hadn't understood the meaning of your sayings. I have no longer believed in your exclamation marks since you wanted to prove me how much I meant to you. It's now too late to realize that this is me: to woman always wearing a question mark in the corner of her pale smile. I don't care, but it hurts.
Vero Anttheia Teodoru
I don't like the theme because I used to care about every trifle. I wish I learnt how to stop having this inappropriate attitude. I heard there's a school of Indifference with capital I, but not everyone can follow its courses, teachers often skip classes and students are even worse. Why? They don't give a damn. Someone who is now a graduate student once told me that there was no chance for you to pass an exam unless you were authentic, especially when it came to practice. One can tell when you're acting. Call it a miracle if you pass the first year. Wish me luck.
Ana Maria Vaida
The cough came out of my chest. I can't handle it this time. Be careful with how you cough, a vein may break anytime. I'm getting up. Shaking, barely standing on my feet. They installed me a mobile toilet next to my bed. Conversations cease. The others turn their eyes to their phones or walls. I know the tall, narrow room will get filled with stink. I can see the daughter of the man in the bed next to mine turning her head towards the window. I can feel both her awe and embarrassment. I'm already sitting, she can't get out. Let me recover. Let me survive another round of chemo.
(Translated by Cristina-Andreea Dobre / 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.