That's the way she was: nimble, shy, with her head in the clouds. Her father used to say to her, forget those poems, see about Pythagoras and Thales, they are not poets but they wrote something too, I don't know what you'll do in life with all that literature. She was exaggerating too, putting butterflies in the corner of maths notebooks and verses in isosceles triangles. On the first day of eighth grade a boy came along who first moved the butterflies from her notebooks to her stomach, then helped her learn geometry and took her to the movies over winter break. All straight A's.
Ioana Epure
She loved playing the piano. The bumblebee under the window was the first one to hear her, and invited the bees to dance, and what tasty honey came out, the children drank tea with honey, instead of juice, then the snails took off their shells, to the rhythm, the people, seeing them, began to give up on the walls too, the children were much happier today on the 7th floor than yesterday on the 5th floor. The trees shook their leaves, some green, some yellow, some not at all. The doctor glances into the waiting room, ma'am, won't you sit down? You look tired.
Andra Toropoc
Especially the holiday ones, with the frightening, endless problems from Olivotto and Gheba. The trains that were waiting for me to decode their mysteries were decaying towards September under the piles of apricots and pears strategically placed on the exercise books. But the A4 notebooks were often opened, only inside of them could the small flowers in my grandparents' garden be preserved forever. Plus the squared sheets of paper were so useful on rainy days when we played Boats in the house. And they all floated in a little boat of eternal holiday.
(Translated by Diana Caragea / 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.