A world in which everybody does their job. In the morning, I go out the door. The elevator button for the first floor has been ripped off. How mad do you have to be to fight a button? In the parking lot, I find my car corner banged up. Looks like a bad day. I don't have time to look into it, I'm late for work. But I get home late today. I'll talk to the insurance guys. At work everybody knows what they have to do. Anything else would be unacceptable. I get back home, my first floor neighbour says something about a meeting. You simply must come, he says. I go.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
The sun hits the back of our heads. I feel beads of sweat beneath my cap. Yesterday i went to the police station for cleaning the land. I don't want any of them still free out there, he told us. We gathered them in the yard, we didn't let them go. Communists, we shouted. Today we wait. The heat has made us dizzy like a bunch of flies. There's a dot on the horizon. It grows bigger. It screeches to a stop. A clerk opens the first car. Naked bodies, exhausted, smeared with lime, blood, urine and dung, fall to the ground on top of each other. I faint.
Mihaela Suciu
You, Ion, remember that autumn we picked plums from ya' momma's garden? Good times. People were people, the plums sweet as honey. And remember that polenta with stew! Yelled auntie Ana. Or that plum brandy your old man had from his youth, how it soothed our souls. I haven't had brandy like that in ages. I don't even think I'll ever have it again. But, Gheorghe, I got a lil' bit stashed somewhere. I gave it to Mary to hide it. Then, tell her to bring it. No, cus I'll finish it[1] and I'm keeping it for when my nephew gets baptized, but I got anotha one from that same year, same as good.
[1] Here, "nu, c-o-ncep" sounds the same as "nu concep", which is a clever way of integrating the title, although they have no connection one to the other.
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.