Grandpa, why didn't you cut those two thistles that had grown on grandma's grave last time we went to the cemetery? Oh, my dear, that means that there is still life there. Your grandma wants to tell me something and I can't figure out what. Even alive, she only spoke in riddles. I thought she babbled away because she didn't even finish sixth grade and I even told her: Woman, stop talking gibberish. And the next day she would explain it to me and I would go silent when I realized how right she was. Grandpa, I know what she wants to tell you. What? She still loves you.
Daniel Onofrei
The girl in our story was a hard-working student, the comrade teacher's favourite. However, her shoulders dropped and she sighed when it came to certain homework. Homework she had to do daily, under her father's careful supervision. And her father took the calligraphically written papers to the County Party Organisation: Georgescu gives his son a meat sandwich at school. Where from, comrades? Ionescu's child wears jeans. How is that possible, comrades? And in Popescu's house, they drink coffee. Coffee, comrades.
Oana Moraru
She was bored and she leaned her cheek against the hand that was supposed to hold her pencil and to draw the sticks and the dashes on the white piece of paper. Her thoughts were wandering around, to unicorns and cotton candy. She was surprised to see the noon sky. The sun was entwining his rays with the red braids in a friendly way through the window of the clay house. She would've liked to run on the poppy-filled field and to then lay in the grass and count the clouds and to assign them shapes. She sighed thinking of her mom. She had told her that school was the only thing that would help her become a great PERSON.
(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.