Remorses

Marilena Demian
On the side of the road, a bunch of tomatoes sat on a chair, waiting to be sold. I stopped. There was a house with its gates wide open. Inside the yard, an ancient Dacia car, resting on blocks, had a towel covering its windscreen to provide some shade. An old man got out of the car with difficulty. Good morning, yes, they're from my garden, the last of this season. I asked for a kilo, like I was at a market. I leave, but immediate remorse washes over me for not purchasing all of them to spare the man from staying in the sun. I struggle to make a U-turn, only to find the yard with its gates now closed. No sign of tomatoes, old man or Dacia.
 
 Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
Girl, where are you goin'with that cleaver, her mother asked. I'm gonna kill the jerk. Humping me all day is not enough for him; he's playing both sides of the fence. She found him in the backyard, near the stable. She grabbed his head from behind and cut it off. Blood gushed out and splattered everything around. She watched him deadpan as he twitched for the last time on the dirty ground. She picked him up and hurled him to his mother's feet. I loved him, fed him and he cheated on me. I regret that I didn't do it sooner. Boiling him may take a while, but he'll give flavour to the soup.
 
 Lucian Domșa
I done wrong, Father, Nana Valeria confessed to the priest. While my man was off in Spain toiling, I was a-fooling' \'round with his brother. When he came back, I had a belly that'd grown for three whole months. I got him drunk one night, and we slept together. After I birthed his son, he got to thinkin' how I popped him out so quick. It didn't add up to him, \'til I convinced him that he might have brought an ailment from Spain which makes babies come sooner. Them folks on the radio said that they are years ahead of us, bearing children quicker, you know.

(Translated by Alin Sescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)