I am a psychologist. I fix souls. I do it well, I am like a hound that sniffs the wind and hunts it until it is caught. For instance, today. I pulled out a stubborn little Stockholm out of the reeds of some repeated rapes. What do you want me to tell you? That this chick who's sitting in the armchair, cool, sweating confidence and professionalism through every pore, comes home and collapses like a castle of playing cards? That she needs a bottle of booze in order to, shard by shard, piece back together her cathartic smile? Cheers. Isn't that what life's all about?
Gabriela Rus
I was born with the curse of memory. Here, they call it a disease. Because they fear the things I say to them, especially about the future, they've locked me in an old building with damp walls and barred windows. I know it from other eras, at that time, it was inhabited by a rather nutty baron, funnily enough. The garden was full of roses, and the piano could be heard through the open window. Now it is full of weeds. It's hard to walk, I'm always sleepy. For a short while, sometimes I even manage to forget. What a horrible life. And it's not even the last one.
Augustin Bănică
The distance was not big. You know how it goes nowadays, just a click away. We met on God knows what platform, we followed each other on insta, and kept in touch. I don't know if the same issues and trauma got us together, or if there really was something there. I'm not talking about love and twinkly eyes, but connection. She was different, she was something else, she was my everything. And she was. For two weeks. Then, missing for two days. I made up all sorts of movies, played them episodically going on not at all. But after that, boom. She's back with her ex.
(Translated by Diana Georgiana Rădăcineanu / 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.