This Fall

Răzvan Drăgoi
The police surrounded meto lock me in their puffs. They took out their pistons, but I wasn't armed any better. They shot amullet in the air. To warm me. I pulls out the auto Calmashnikov and fired a cover snot, while my farm was stripping from my character and emotion. You won't catch me alive, I creamed at the mat the middle of my lungs. I put on my stereo militant headset and myBullet-Poof fest. They fired at me. They ruined my haircut. It's nothing, they put a mullet on me. The newspapers wrote about the suicide on Autumn Street.

Laura Stanciu
Quack. Quack. Come to granny. Where are you? Look, Andreiuț, two ducklings. Do you see where they're hiding? What, you thought I was calling you to come eat? Granny will bring you some wet cornmill mixed with minced grass. Quack, quack. Four more ducklings hurry to answer the call and come waddling. Phew, what a beauty, says the old woman clapping her hands. They're behind the boxes as well. Call them too, let's see how many of them are left. The polecat came by yesterday. Andreiuț, spinning around after them, counted them a couple times in a row on his fingers.
 
 Carmen Tot
We moved into a new house. May we never leave this place, I thought. The kids need a worldto discover and feel that it's safe, and he won't have togo from place to place all day long. We arranged everything, I placed my hope in the idea of stability and offered my prayers to the One in whom we believe. But an unopened box remained by the door, and every day we all looked at it, not daring to address the elephant in the room. And last night, when the black cat's whiskers sniffed around the house, we understood: there's no country for field mice.

(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)