A stone palace. An old, feeble and filthy rich prince. My parents sold me for the peace between the two kingdoms. So that vampires would stop jumping to our throats. I cried all the way up there. I had to marry someone the age of my grandfather. Surprise! He was neither old, nor feeble, but a man at his peak age, with black eyes and a cold gaze. Strangely, I expected the ladies to be all around him. I found out he was involved with the stable boy a month later. Blonde, anaemic, type A, RH negative.
Vlad Mușat
One more year until he can come here. When he will see all these wonders from the Playboy magazine pages, he would give up chess. Maybe, he would lose some nights with me drinking beer while we play FIFA. His mother hates me. She remarried a dishevelled hair violinist. What are artists good for? I barely manage to fix some things. Unlike him, I did my years in the military. I can protect my family. He strums. If my boy picked an instrument I would break his fingers. Here, Dana, the first number.
Daniel Onofrei
I have struggled with the fear of knowing things about myself for years. Somewhere, deep down, there was an electrified grate that kept me a prisoner of my own mind. I read self improvement books. Whole bookshelves of them. I attended seminars, a psychologist, astrologist, numerologist, all to no avail. It wasn't until I got to the proctologist that I understood what I needed. And that it was a grate of shame. And the realization set me free. And gave me permission to love. I found the grate of fear much later, at the oncologist.
(Translated by Andreea Cuprian / 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.