I've been lost in my thoughts for ages, just like wandering a mangrove forest. I stumbled, I found myself completely stuck and got covered up in mud. I got tired. I let myself float on the swamp like a paper boat. Ofelia, who has never gone to convent. As I was floating, I opened my eyes and for the very first time I saw the honeyed light of the bright blue sky above the mangroves. The way out. I stood up and headed towards the sky without looking back. Darkness was left behind me like a ball, then like a button and finally like a dot.
Arthur Ianoși
Take a large bowl, preferably a transparent one, pour all your sadness in it even if it is overflowing, add 2 tablespoons of not giving a damn, 3 tablespoons of jemanphishism, sprinkle about 21 grams of indifference dust, 9 grams of rose marine taken from the lost corals in the Dead Sea, add a little bit of salt just for the taste, mix them together in disgust until you get a homogeneous mixture. Everything that fell out of the bowl is licked with aversion. What's inside of the bowl should be drunk breathlessly. What's this grandpa? The recipe of happiness.
Marian Benone Mihai
My name is Ilie Pălărie and I'm an adopted citizen of Ciosvârta village, night and day watcher of the green stars of our village. It all started in the 90's, when land was being given back to the people. Mayor said there was no land left and gave me about three slaps which made me see green stars and he told me to guard them because they were mine. Shortly after that, a ma'am who pretended to be an artist came and took them away from me, claiming that she would paint them in colours and I've never seen them since. I don't care, I'd just like them back.
(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.