When we arrived in that village in the middle of the field, the wedding was just happening, many guests were already wasted. We were welcome with joy, put at a table and given cups of wine. Where are you from? From the district, we are with the census of the animals. Animals? Where from, drought, there was no corn, the pigs died of pest and the hens of avian influenza. Poor us. What a luck the grapes were sweet and the wine is strong. Alright, and that heated grill? They told us some people with the census would come. Wait, where are you running?
Arthur Ianoși
We had all gathered in Poiana Cucului. The meat-rolls were sizzling like the informers of the security when you were pushing them with the patent for balls. All unemployed, over 55, the children wouldn't pay us the rent. Humiliating. We looked for work like dogs piss on lanterns. Not even the devil wouldn't have hired us. The idea came to us when we saw a flyer with Casa del Papel. 5 renegades very well defined roles. The beers were the guards, the meat-rolls, the sacks with money and the watermelon, the escape car. They gave me 10 bani.
Ruxandra Donose
I don't want to come to the barbeque with you. I don't want to eat dead animals, to pretend it's good, it's fine, I laugh. I don't want a camping fire, to sing music that would come out of me like broken glass. I don't want to pretend everything is fine, with you. Maybe life has meaning for you, maybe mornings are not made out of lead for you, maybe nights are not repeated deaths. For you. At night, I find it so hard to fall asleep that I hope soon it will be the last time. You won't know, you'll be at a barbeque.
(Translated by Ema-Teodora Rădulescu / 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.