This Fall

Ioana Epure
I won't go to school anymore. He's sitting on the floor, in the hallway, clenched-fisted, looking into my eyes. The overweight backpack thrown into a corner can hardly be seen, I have forgotten to buy a light bulb again. Why? I'm wasting my time, I'm not learning anything, nothing at all, don't you understand that there's no point in going there? What do you have in there? Look, the Chemistry book, not even a basic definition of the valence of an element is understandable. You know that we are, don't you? How do you do the maths to fit into the whole? See? They don't even teach me how to be a man on this planet, let alone be happy.

Marian Benone Mihai
As any other goodman, I go to the marketplace to gawk at fruits and vegetables during autumn. I spot some fine pears right at the entrance. The lady smiles at me and suggests that I touch them. They were kind of soft. Some good-looking cranberries from the lady next to her catch my eye.To taste it, I reach for one. They were hard as a rock. The lady tells me that I'm allowed to touch, but not to bite. From the stand across, an old lady who has some gigantic pumpkins calls me and says that she has mushrooms too. I thought to myself that if they were contagious, I don't want them.
 
 Titela Durnea
When the first leaves change their colours I know the time has come. This time I don't want it to go, I want to stay. Maybe I got tired of waiting for a new comeback. He's tying his shoelaces leaning against the stuffed backpack. I'm trying to tell him, but my lips are sealed. Indecisiveness seizes me in a clip. As if I were Buridan's donkey. I finally scream: stay, take me with you. I realize I'm screaming inside my head. He gets up. Smiles. Kisses me. You know it will be over quickly. The door closes. It's autumn. I know. That it will be over.

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