I'm eight years old and a bit. I tell my mom I don't want to go in that apartment. She doesn't stop, she says that's how it should be. The smell of fir fills the building, pulling the light from the windows into the candles. I wish the ascent could last forever. But I'm already in front of the wide-open door. The apartment is small, not even the angels who came to take her can fit. That's why I can't see them. I'll come out quickly. Her mother asks God why. I look at her. One eye slightly open.Flat, dressed too beautifully for us to ever play again.
Carmen Tot
I was tearing the pages of his book, I'm here, don't be so serious, playing is terribly beautiful, you will go too far like this, and I will remain the simplest being in your life, you will forget me. He turned page after page for a long time and then he left and took the train from the distant Glasgow and came back, and now, sitting in the grass, he calls me. My heart jumps as it did back then, I run in my thoughts, but it takes me a while to get there. The book is closed, he caresses me with love. My old dog whispers. And I understand that this time, I will leave.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
The day life showed me not to play with destiny. I mean the day a doctor told me my 6 months old daughter might no longer wake up. At that moment, not only did I get older, I somehow died. Paradoxically, a change of destiny blessed my life, without having initially understood that. I got older on other occasions too. Getting old, though, isn't that bad because it's proof you're still alive. And when you're alive you experience yourself in this world. As it is, with all its good and bad. It's the only one we got.
(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / 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.