at order fortune cookie messages for pies. I work with Dan: I write them by hand, and he folds them perfectly. We make a perfect couple. Professionally, of course. I carefully round the letters: Follow your dream. Tears well inside my eyes. Since I was little, I dreamed of being a writer, and now I write motivational messages. For others. Others who are luckier. I will never live my dream. Dan, say something with love. I love you, Dan responds without lifting his gaze. I write: Enjoy, you are loved. Tears overwhelm me. Never me.
Andreea Luise Stana
The manuscript. The second one, the first I threw into the fire. Have you gone mad? My mother asked baffled. I made myself some tea and sat beside the fireplace. The flames weregetting a kick out of my poems. I glanced inside myself, to see if I could find traces of regret. Suddenly, I felt as if I had a dark room in my stomach, full of illness and decay. I thought of Pablo Escobar, when he set two million dollars on fire. They say money can't bring you happiness. But they at least keep you warm. So does poetry.
George Dometi
Casket at B7. Earth. Piles of earth gobbled up by shovels. The fool develops on the cemetery fence at C4. An explosion of tears to attack the citizen at F7 with regret, and a hatted rook brings a crown of carnations to the lady at H5 (or F3). This does not go unpunished. Abstinent kisses. From an oven, the ashes of the deceased are taken out and shaken into a handkerchief. If the black doesn't defend itself, the white gives gray at E6. The horse retreats in a cha-cha. The crypt gate slams shut. Obituary of a chess player.
(Translated by Ioana Grințescu / 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.