I Won The Nobel Prize

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
 What a handsome man, she said to herself as she observed the tattoo on his forearm. It was a raven, wings spread. Does it mean something, she asked him. The raven? Loneliness. Are you lonely? He didn't answer then, but a few days later, when they met by chance in a second-hand shop. I don't know if I'm lonely or a stranger. Sometimes I'm afraid of people, but also of life. I'll take a prize for the most anguished soul. She laughed and pulled him by the hand. Better come with me to the dressing room so I can try on this dress.  

Ina Moldoveanu
I thought it was a joke. I had just celebrated my golden wedding[1] to Patricia. I've never been a one-woman man. I'd known her for some time before her last husband died. Now she tells me she loves me. I have the Nobel. I have Isabel. Iglesias had her too. Her children call me uncle. On her arm I shine. Tia Julia has a book. Patricia has dedications. I loved the women in my family, that's why I had them for wives. I'm getting old. Isabel loved her husbands' friends. Some she had as husbands.

 Florin Tamaș
Dad, take these 3 lei here, go to the convenience store and ask for a pack of Mărășești and some candy. I was already dreaming, the Mărășești were 1.85 lei, so for 1.15 I'll get a tub of drops, in a paper cone. But, says the good man, don't go past the sheepfold, the hounds will smell you. That's exactly where I went. No, I'll beat your skin with a stick[1], the shepherd with a bat shouted on one side, the grandfather with a cane shouted on the other. He'd been testing me to see if I was ready. I was handing out sweets, they were licking them from my hands.

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