Be kirfull not to fall in love, Tuțica told me before I left. Well, I did it at my earliest convenience, as soon as I saw a small waist tootsie. She looked at me fleetingly through her smoky sunglasses. I asked her what time it was. She didn't know. Then the rest is a tale to tell our grandkids when they're grown up and settled down. When I got home, Tuțica was inquisitive. Well, how was it, did you enjoy yourself? Not really. The wind was too strong. The sea was warm. Annoying seagulls.Gone off beer. I didn't say a word. What happens in Mamaia, stays in Mamaia.
Lucian Domșa
Dear fellow teachers, esteemed audience, Mr. Mayor, your Holiness, distinguished parents and students. Me as ze Principal overwhelmed by emotions would like to say to you zet ze school serve more zen half of ze population. Ze Minister of Education said zat ze laws is enacted to provide free education by ze Romanian state, so anybody must learn read and write. Education is anything, as it were in our grandparents' time when not knowing ze alphabet were not ze option.
Florentina Ghițescu
We've arrived in Sulina. Fine dust-like sand. I remember the beach in Mangalia where I used to go alongside my grandpa. Childhood of swimming, digging holes in the sand, wire rings and seashell beads. Around 3 o'clock Mom would come home from work bringing sandwiches with pâté and tomatoes. The fancy resort beaches, others wilder. All these beaches brought me to this one in Sulina, where I've been in another lifetime. The memory is just like the sand of the beaches, just when you fancy that memory is lost, you still find a grain of sand stuck somewhere around.
(Translated by Bogdan Macarie / 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.