The older boy found the photo forgotten in God knows what drawer. It was yellowed by time. There must've been about 15 years since I lost it. It was around the time when I gave birth to him. He asked me who the man in the picture was and why I was hugging him. I told him it was his father. When I saw his face again, I could feel my chest tightening because of how much I had missed him. I sighed. My husband came to see the photo too and his face turned red. Of anger. Of shame. Who knows. Who cares. We've been married for 16 years. Had been.
Ionuț Tuhoarcă
I was on the bus. Coming home. I don't know where I've been. A dude sat down next to me. Nothing elliptical. I looked at him. He looked at me. He chained me with his untrimmed claws like an ex-girlfriend of mine who used to forget her coffee on the stove. You're from the C.I.A., he told me in his breath. Close, I answered. F.B.I. How'd you know? I have a nose. I have a nose too. I'm taking out my gun. I'm taking out my gun too. POW, he said. POW, I said. BOOM, BOOM, safe house. You're out. Goddamn mobsters, said the driver looking in the mirror. Arrogantly.
Arthur Ianoși
An abyss of hopelessness and prematurely strangled memories had gapped between the eyes that once gazed deeply at each other. The first to look away loses the battle of reconciliation. Happiness is like a father who doesn't stick around too much. A fish you're trying to catch with your bare hands and someone calls out your name from the shore. One look away and it's gone. That's how you go too, skinning the ground with your heavy feet. Nothing's more alive when everything around you is dead. He left you his boots. She took her Converse shoes. A dumb smile. Just as on a photo shoot.
(Translated by Cristina-Andreea Dobre / 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.