When the godfather found the godson in cahoots with the godmother as revenge for the love affair with the goddaughter, it became such a scandal with two divorces that the county marvelled. With all the shards of glass that appeared then, fortune had to come. They won the million on a common ticket. Advised by the priest they split the winnings, after the prelate took a quarter of the money as a tithe. After years of lawsuits, left without money and lawyers, they remarried each other's exes. Now they live in the same apartment and are well liked in the swingers community.
Anca Mureșan
He fell into a drinking habit after his children fled and his wife left him. People in the village nicknamed him Damigeană. They laughed at his shabby clothes and got out of his way because he smelled like a ferret. One Friday, in a terrible frost, he staggered off with a bottle in his hand to Florica's house, intending to bring her back home. I'm not lucky enough to be spared from my misery by these shards, he said to himself after slipping on the thin ice. They found him dead in a ditch, his clothes covered in blood.
Ana-Maria Butuza
You have 30 more stairs to happiness. It was written on the front door. Say, how long will it take to get up there? In 30 years, months, days? Hm, well, that sounds good. Let me see, I say, and I open the door with all the drive of a man desperate for happiness. So many stairs. Up and up I go with that sweet treat in mind. I begin to pant, because it wasn't at all easy, and in my eyes I already had shards of fatigue mixed with sweat and my body ached with the happiness I dreamed of, but I didn't give up. When I got upstairs, the door said: Gone on vacation, come back.
(Translated by Anca Maria Florea / 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.