Where are you coming from at this hour? Sleepy, smelling of cigarette smoke. How are you going to be able to perform in the contest today? At your age, a future virtuoso already plays a decent Liszt score. There's no performance without effort and sacrifice. With these outings with friends, what can you become more than a mediocrity? Like you, mother? Stop treating me like I'm your miniature. You've forced me to play your unborn life in Allegretto. That's not my dream. Rather than not knowing who I am, I'd rather be a nobody.
Silvia Ștefan
Face to face with the Devil, sipping ness from cups. A bold streak of light slipped through the drawn curtains. Its peak stands to prick the table, midway between us. The beast rubs its hairy hands together and rises, leaning towards me. Just enough to feel its foul breath. Silvi, you went over my word, he says through his teeth. Fur Ball, if I remember correctly, you didn't use the singular. I strangled them all, not just him. I was thirsty. He was sipping my smile, I was the perfect apprentice.
Diana Cornea
It had emerged from the shredded bark just long enough to place it in the palm of a shaggy leaf, protecting the frail body from the soft autumn wind. Her eyes were wide-eyed and her legs were long, thin, which she did not know how to walk. The transparent wings fluttered in puzzlement and their flapping lifted her a millimetre into the murky colour of the shelter. Today the leaf carried her like a ship to an unknown world. It floated gently on the wave of air and stopped at the shore of light sprung kaleidoscopically from frozen blades of grass. In wonder, she spread her wings wide.
(Translated by Iulia-Mihaela Țugulea / 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.