I tell the children that I also want to play hide and seek with them. No, because you're too ugly, they told me. I start running towards the forest on the hill. I'll play alone, as usual. Next to an oak tree, I see a pit. I get into it and cover myself with leaves. I sit with my knees to my chest and wait. An hour passed, two sunsets, several seasons. I'm going to die like a fool without finding myself, I told myself. I start to cry. Someone takes my wet cheeks between their hands. Baby, wake up, what did you dream? I was playing hide and seek, I told him.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
In the former loves. Just yesterday, as I was yelling at you, I realized that I was actually yelling at my first boyfriend. Just as I realized that there are also my parents' voices in my head. In the past, when I couldn't find myself anymore, I ran away into the world. Now I can't run anywhere, because in front of our child, we are a way. And then I stay. As you stay. And we were looking for each other together, among dishes to wash and clothes to pack. Or at concerts, when I cry on the music of Erik Satie, and you ask me what's wrong and hold my hand.
Sanda Burță
From that whole day, I only remember my aunt's words - better than that, cripple, God took her. When my father went to the city, he told me that he was going to make money for new, iron legs, to last me a lifetime, but he never came back, probably the city was big, Father says that some people get lost there. I write to him every day. Today, I wrote to him that I am a bird and he is my wind, I don't need legs. My mother says I'm overcomplicating myself, I should tell him exactly how I feel. Dad, the wind is about birds.
(Translated by Andreea Maria Liceanu / 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.