Come on, push the button. This is what you've been trained for. Look at them. They don't stand a chance. Whether it happens now or ten, thirty, a hundred years from now, it's exactly the same thing, we're only prolonging their agony. Think of a horse that's broken its leg. Yes, he's alive, he's grimacing in pain, he's looking at you with wet eyes begging for mercy, but you know he's doomed. You pull the trigger just to put him out of his misery. Come on, push the button. Their world must meet its end. It's only natural.
Daniela Rusu
I don't know about others, but I miss the old world. Of alleyways full of children, of dust kicked up by carts, of men in top hats opening doors for women, and of women sending locks of their hair in perfumed letters. Of time for love. Of noons with feet in the basin, to wipe the mud off your heels or the smell of a hot fireplace. Of the hustle and bustle of the groups outside the block, of relaxed parents sitting over coffee. Of borrowed books read under the trees. Of time for dreaming. Of the twinkling of stars, no longer seen.
Gabriela Rus
He sits by the window for hours and talks. Nobody knows to whom. It's like it's not a human language. We tried to communicate with him, to get him out of his world. We don't know his name or where he comes from, if he has any family. They say he was dead for two hours and when they brought him back, he was a different man. Doctors say it's brain damage. But this new therapist who works with him thinks his soul is still there. Sometimes he smiles at me, when I give him fruit, poor thing. I feel sorry for him, they should have let him go.
(Translated by Andreea Ciubuc / 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.