The mocănița[1] stopped screeching into the valley, which was like the bottom of a bowl, surrounded by woods of fir trees. She started walking by foot on the path that led to the rocks in the heart of the mountain, having her hiking boots on and her hiking stick with her. When she struck the first piton in the stone, she knew she was going to get to the top, where the cliff defied the clear blue skies. Where dreams would become reality and where she dared to feel free. The mountain flows inside your veins when you're born, she recalled her grandfather's words, and struck the last piton. Learn how to respect it, not how to tame it.
[1] Mocănița is a narrow-gauge railway in Maramureș, Transylvania and Bucovina. They are situated in mountain areas and the locomotives operating on them (which themselves can also be reffered to as mocănițe) are steam-powered.
Alina Ilie
I'm waiting for him to tell me he loves me, I grieve these so simple, so heavy words, I need them. He spoils and cuddles me, but he doesn't articulate my desire, he doesn't even whisper it, when the air itself couldn't hear, only I could. We're at the mountains now, we walked, laughed, and I look at him, how important he is to me. How he's hiding behind his book, simpering when feeling my gaze. His phone rings, hello, yes, I'm going out for a bit to talk on the phone. Yes, baby, how are the kids doing, I love you. I heard him and I died.
Sorin Rizeanu
So we hurried the lambs silently. But a jill felt my presence. I don't kill, I steal. I put the blade to the jill's neck and tied her up in a ditch. But why, didn't you look for her? Micu squinted at him. I looked for her from here to Orșova city. But after a month, at a saloon in Brad city, I told a kiddo where she's hidden. The words didn't spread. The tall fellow looked at him in disgust, touching the dagger. Now what? Micu got really mad at him and pushed him from above in Cerna river. Having his legs broken, the tall fellow was yelping on the stones. I'll have a word with a kiddo and tell him to come look for you at the inn in Bradu. A month from now.
(Translated by Cristina-Andreea Dobre / 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.