I wanted to call you to the funeral, to the memorial service. That I've got colivă[1], I've got colaci[2], I've got prapuri[3], I've got napkins, I've got chairs, I've got chicken. Yes, but I was asleep at the time. And I'll sleep in the new house. Four 4-metre boards. And I've got my holiday clothes at the bottom of the crate in the Big House. I'll wrap myself in them. In the shelf you find the candles and the veil to go to seven old widowed women and seven unripe children and make three rosaries each. Then you wrap me in it. And make me a KNOT to stay in this country.
[1] Colivă is a dish made of sweetened boiled wheat, optinally mixed with nuts and spices and used in Eastern Orthodox rituals to commemorate the dead.
[2] Colac is a bakery product, usually ring-shaped, woven from two or more rolls of husk.
[3] Prapur is a church flag carried in processions or other religious solemnities.
Diana Andrasi Zarnoveanu
From above, it looks so plainly banal that not even the portholes look at it. From below, it looks like a Vladimir still waiting for a Godot in an empty train station. From the reels, it looks like a colourful utopia of blonde gypsies, charming lovers and medieval damsels in ragged shawls. Up close, it smells of cheap cigarettes and Levantine sweat. From afar, from my drawer, she sits, dear to me, stuck in her grandparents' wedding picture, just them, simple and straight as two Socratic sentences.
Daniela Toader
Mom peels carrots, I read România Liberă newspaper. I find a job in Paris. I jump for joy. I pack my bags, take the plane, land in Paris, work in Clermont Ferrand city, take my holidays in Romania, work in Paris, spend 2 hours a day underground, live only on weekends, take my holidays in Romania, decide to go back, jump for joy, now I live in a city with lots of roundabouts, electric buses and a Black Church. In the meantime, my mother died and România Liberă newspaper disappeared.
(Translated by Victor Albei / 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.