Diana Cornea
They were taking a bath together. She liked choking him. The flamingo was spewing big soap bubbles like cries for help, but she was happily popping them. She leaned her head back, her lips tugging into a cruel smile. Today she found an octopus. The steam invaded the small, hospital-tiled space as she drew the bath. She sprung from the murky depths with a cold gaze as she tried to kill the smile of her new victim. Long, endless arms ensnared her. Tiny soap bubbles float out of the keyhole.
Anca Socaciu-Man
In the imaginary world, the little girl wished good morning to Martin, Liza, Bumba, Azorel, her friends. She lived with her grandparents after her parents had to become forced laborers. One day, as she was getting inside, Lizzy came upon a uniformed man throwing away her toys. He brutally snatched her hand, shoving her into the car alongside a few other kids. You bastards, did you think you could get away, huh? Nothing was the same afterward. Now she is 83 years old and the only survivor of the children's concentration camp. She was number 669.
George Dometi
Regrettably, it's raining. What do you mean it's regrettably raining? What sort of regrets? It's a saying, kid. What do you mean? It's said that the Lord sees when a person works on a holiday and gives him rain on a work day so he cannot do any work. That's why it's regrettably raining. Twirling his shaggy moustache he went on. And we don't say it rained, but that the sky is freshly washed. We don't say that he died on a rainy day, but that the sky is weeping over this fool too. Then he was cackling like a fool. I placed the sheep made out of wool scraps I got from him on his grave and left.
(Translated by Adriana-Maria Botea / 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.