Because her family had not taken her home, Kim had been living in a basement full of miasma since she had returned from Burma. It all had started the night they forced her into the boat. On the other side, they tainted her for the first time. Then it had been nothing but a torn wound through which the soldiers of the Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun had passed again and again. She cursed the day the allies found her alive and sent her to her kin. In another life she was just a child with unnaturally large eyes, picking snails on the banks of the Nakdong River.
Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
They both loved cartoons and, in the evenings, the children in the cold orphanage room watched the anime narrated by the two of them on the wall with their hand shadows. The years passed, the shadows grew, and the wall felt like they had gone from playfulness to tentativeness, the first touch, the first kiss. They left the institution, fingers came alive for a while longer, he wanted fame, she loved the white of the wall. That morning the clouds seemed like shadows in the sky. Mom, look, Dad painted the sky with the drawings I like. And the boy laughed happily.
Alex Caragian
Prince Charming-with-squinting-eyes was planting bitter candied cherries on Mount Fuji. On the enchanted surfboard, the Dragon Balls kite was flying over the big wave at Kanagawa. It landed with flapping wings on the snowy summit and skid on to it initiatory journey. It arrived in the forest of the Prince, who scrutinized him from afar with even smaller eyes, so much so that the kite thought he was Sleeping Beauty and came closer to kiss him to get up. It didn't take long before Prince Charming swung his morning stick at the kite and turned into Princess HenThay.
(Translated by Andreea Cristina Moise / 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.