Arthur Ianoși
Her squinting eyes made her more tolerant towards the flaws of this sick new world. She wore a pair of Coke bottle glasses, scratched and dusty. She sat under the street cherry plum tree, filled a bucket with water, threw some pebbles into it, and wrote down on a piece of paper as best as she could: DO NOT FEED THE SHARK SEEDS. Reclining against the tree, she started humming a song in an unknown language. Relu, the eternal rebel, passed by and threw three seeds into the bucket. The sharp swallowed them whole. If only I hadn't written.
Gabriel Rusu
Listen to me carefully, brother. Yesterday, as I was passing by the sunbeds carrying the corn, I stumbled upon two kingpins chattering. They said they were taking Syrians from a ship harboured at gate 7. There is a guard there and if you grease his palm properly he'd look the other way. I thought we could do the same, you know what they say, what happens at the beach stays at the beach. Nea Igor will give us two guns, so we can go after them tonight, plunge in, man, you dig me? What about the Syrians? Screw'em, we'll sell them like cattle. Let the money flow, that's all that matters.
Ruxandra Donose
During summertime I sleep no wink, I can't sleep. The speakers were booming and, toes buried in the sand and forehead in my hands, I remembered the Radio Vacanța[1] of my childhood. Now every fifty meters, you hear strange songs, and in certain places, you may hear two at once. Do we all need to quiet our thoughts? I try to listen to the waves as they surge upon hearts and castles but that's in vain. Even the seagulls must scream in order to make themselves heard. We let ourselves be deafened, and slowly, the urge to sing fades within us.
(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.