Auntie, why do you look from your bench every day at that ladder fixed to the apartment building? Dear child, I look because it reminds me of me. I've always been afraid of a lot of things, of heights, of awkwardness, of the unknown, of love. And now, look, I'm going to die alone, like a fool. And I've lost so much happiness, child. Then, one evening, the old lady climbed the fire escape to the roof of the block, sat down on a blanket and looked up at the sky. That night, she passed away staring up at the stars.
Diana Andrasi Zarnoveanu
So, as far as I understand it, on the ladder in question, we read academically with a cigarette in the corner of our mouth or in our fingertips, we run like we're on fire, we climb pushed from behind by hormones, we sit meditatively looking into the future of humanity or wish-fulfilling stars, stare at our neighbours' tits, jump up, down and in between two steps at a time, run after some Hollywood mugger, pick our noses, look for the slippers of lost loves, mutter cheap philosophies and don't even think of sweeping up.
Iulia Biro
To the sky, hahaha, to the sky, laughs Lucifer madly. He set the cauldrons on fire, and now everything's burning. A puff of brimstone twirls to the floor of Heaven. So much work day after day, so much sweat and blistered skin, eyes red with soot and the fur tuft at the tip of the tail always burnt and stinking of scorched pig. And for what? he yells towards the sky. I was wrong, but so were you. That's how you made me, do you hear me? Come on, he turned to the freed sinners so they wouldn't burn. Up into the smoke, that's where Heaven is.
(Translated by Cătălina Colibaba / 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.