Grandma is dying. She asks me to put the tin ring from Ion on her finger. The boy loved her a lot. She loved him, too. She gave up everything. She, the most beautiful girl in the village, disobeyed her parents and married that dirt-poor boy. Not even a year later, Ion got sent to the front and died shortly after. Today, grandma is dying too. The ring shines on her hand. She whispers heavily. Don't take it off, dear, after I die. When Ionica left me I was young and beautiful, now I'm a hag, but he will know me by this ring. How long he's waited.
Silvia Ștefan
It's too tight. Do something, it has an extension there in the back. The bra? Here, in front of everyone? I can't breathe, really. I'm suffocating. The young man got up from the table and started pulling the zipper of the dress. Maybe you've swallowed something, Silvi. Open it up, I'm dying. The other clients whispered, covering their mouths with their hands. Silvi was turning blue. So was the waiter who messed up the orders. At the table by the window, another young man was picking a muffin. Sweetheart, I had a surprise for you. It should have been here. You have the other one.
Clara Marinescu
I met a writer. His persuasive words melted me and he made me his. Metaphors flowed from his mouth, his epithets astounded the whole world. He made me a main character and I was walking the streets with my head held high like a diva, even though the world had no clue who I was. Until one day, when he put a ring on my finger. I didn't understand why, but from that day, the man brushed off all his metaphors, epithets and tropes and, from the great writer, I could see him exactly for who he was: a second-rate poet with colossal expectations and vanity as big as the pinhead of the ring he offered me.
(Translated by Raluca Sălcianu / 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.