A woman stares at the big screen where a man is tearfully looking at another screen. The one from his childhood cinema. She's seen Tornatore's film at least five times at home, but her house doesn't have the charm of the large, dusty theater with rickety seats and the old smell. And she doesn't have her five or six fellow movie-going regulars, mostly nostalgic of her age, who come from the 1970s, maybe even earlier, rarely a young student. For them, Eforie is Cinema Paradiso.
Silvia Ștefan
Bored, I throw stones into the lake. The waterhole pushes its outline towards the shore. l wonder if it will return. From the end of the alley comes Silvi, in a flared, polka-dotted dress, waving a sheet of paper. She whistles and pedals insistently. Today she has matched her smile with the pearls around her neck. In the basket attached to her handlebars she has tulips, wine and a little white package. Let me lean it against the tree next to mine. What did you make? Pie? Congratulate me, chérie, I passed the class. I deserve a kiss. See this chic dress? My godmother got it for me from the Venus Fashion House. I should become a dressmaker.
Adina Colțea
Grigore walked around with his head in the clouds from dawn till night. You talked to him, but he didn't hear you. He'd make rounds, but with his head still in the clouds. Till one day when he wasn't there anymore. He was gone for good. Fănel said he saw him the other day, in the middle of the night, taking the tram by the pines. What tram, Fanel? I don't know, the point is that our Grigoras went back in time. He's sending us pictures on WhatsApp with Mirabela Dauer and if you ask him to come home, he starts singing about some mill wheel. I think Grigoras is fine there and he's not coming back.
(Translated by Alina Bâznă / 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.