Collapsing, I get a recap of my entire life. Like a fast paced movie. I won't hold anything back, some episodes I'd even delete altogether. I'd linger on Ana's love, but that takes me back to the belts I received from the old man for coming home late, when he was already dead drunk. He was always finding something to fight about. Sometimes me, sometimes my mother. Now he can't. I hold his hand so tight, as if he could change the direction of the fall. He looks at me in astonishment and, in a flash of lucidity, calls out: I'll kill you, you bastard.
Arthur Ianoși
You could see the horseshoe half in his hoof and the spike that had pierced his ankle. He kept on galloping through the dusty path, knowing that if he didn't get there in time his head would no longer be attached to his shoulders. In front of the palace, the exhausted horse collapsed and looked at him with big eyes seeking for mercy. He handed the black-threaded spear to the guardsman and begged Thunder to make one last effort. It wasn't the first time he'd taken him to the vet. The last time he'd had a spear stuck in his throat and nearly died. The old man had some magic powder and he owed him.
Denisse Oana Rădoi
Every dust particle is a world. A city, a building, a wall, a piece of a tabletop where cakes used to be kneaded and where children swarmed around. Thousands of children protesting for a piece of sweet dough. Every particle of dust represents love. Thousands of bodies that made love, drawn to each other by the force of this planet's gravity. The universe will be a speck of dust. I'm a speck of the fine dust, made from the crust of some fiery planet in a constellation thousands of light years away. And I smile.
(Translated by Andreea Georgiana Bogdan / 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.