He loved to stick up the no-go posters, as he loved to inspire childhood-tinged preening through the canals. He collected rubbish from the sand, got sunburnt and was delighted when a child noticed him shouting look, Mummy, a black man. Not allowed to, the child was leaving, and he was desperately longing for the friends with whom he had once run through the streets. He jumped into the sea, doing mad jumps and flips over the waves, and the people on the sun loungers took careless pictures of him, laughing at him because they were allowed.
Sorin Rizeanu
Every sunrise is a betrayal, the mirage of Vama[1] is cut in the first ray. Hysterical seagulls' squabble over scraps of food. Cheap hormones have melted in the clubs and trapped bodies lie cuddled on sun loungers. Love by the pound, with sand stuck to wet thighs. The stink of algae. Broken bottles in sand and wrappers. Yesterday you chased me away. I exiled myself here - to the shore of oblivion, to the shore of inebriated illusion - to remember the beach's law one: every sand castle crumbles when the sea kisses it.
The hospital closed on a Friday. All the patients were discharged except me. My reservation was isolated and, in their haste, they forgot about me. I woke up from anesthesia and might have fallen asleep again if it hadn't been so quiet. Strange. I was moving well for a man in a surgical recovery. I wandered the halls, walked into the kitchen, and lo and behold, food was steaming on the stove. I ate well, in spite of the doctors, then walked out. I opened the door and a white light burned my retina. The ship had run aground in a sandbank.
(Translated by Andreea Cristina Moise / 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.