Last truck to unload for the day. It's December 1st, but I don't miss it. I'm going to turn my phone off because all the TV stations are going to call me. They called me the Great Patriot. I knew the Luceafar by heart, plus a few dozen other poems. I used to recite them with gusto. From the time I became a teenager until I came of age, the TV stations would invite me and replay videos from when I was a kid. I began to hate myself for growing up. Then the depression set in. I've been fine for five years, I'm trying to get German citizenship.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
She didn't look back when she left. She got in the minibus and off she went. At customs, her heart clenched. Father was going to regret giving the calf in exchange for her job at the dispensary. But she didn't want to die in that village. A damp room awaited her at her destination. The language was giving her trouble. The Indians were her only nice co-workers. And her world had become bleak. The idea came to her on Christmas. The first shipment arrived by minibus too. Now she has black pudding, zacuscă[1], bouillon, yeast, pickles and puff pastries in her shop. On a plastic bottle, Mona smiles.
[1] Dish made from eggplant, red pepper, onions, tomatoes, etc. fried in oil, or from fish with a vegetable garnish, which are cooked and packed in glass containers for preservation.
Sanda Burță
Whaddya want, man, why are you yelling, I'm not leashing the dog, say it from there. Would you look at that, Grivei, let's put the stamp on the rose, not on the arrow, hehe, well, hang the bag on the fence next to the other one and go. Woman, go out on the porch and take a needle and thread with you, the wind has ripped the flag and tomorrow's December 1st. Come in, neighbor, sit down and I'm gonna give you a drink, that's why I was looking for you yesterday, I have to plow that piece of the field and I can't no more, cheers, I'll give you a hundred, how else? Are your kids coming home for Christmas? Neither are mine, they say it's expensive. God help us.
(Translated by Adriana-Maria Botea / 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.