Yes, mum, I'm fine, I found a place to stay and I also started my job yesterday. Oh come on, tiresome, if they had stuff to do from 8 until 4 they wouldn't hire random guys from the street without experience, like me. It's fine, what to tell you, a supervisor yells at us if we're too slow and we're not allowed to bring water inside the warehouse. Mm, if it's hot? Yes, a girl from orders fainted yesterday, she'd climbed under the tin roof. But I'm a tougher sort. Well I can't talk anymore, the guys are running out of boxes and the boss keeps pestering us, asking where is our new folder.
Monica Aldea
They were very much alike. At school they shared the same desk. Dinu Valentin and Dinu Valentina. You guys are brothers, some professor used to joke around. Then they parted ways. Life threw them on different continents. Two famous IT professionals. They kept in touch through their job. The internet shortened the distances and made their hearts beat in a similar rhythm. After twenty years they returned to the country. On the morning of her departure, there was a short e-mail on her Applewatch. Let's open a new folder together. You pick the church, I'll pick the restaurant.
George Dometi
He slammed the door behind him, sat at his desk, opened his computer and pressed Ctrl+Shift+N. Name Book of Answers. Then, a sophisticated program that foretold things started to run. His entire life oscillated between the yeses and noes that BoA, the program, offered as answers with an incredible precision to questions like: should I become vegan? Should I go to the shooting range, get back at the classmates who make fun of me calling me names like Gimp, Bugger, Orphan Boy? Should I take my gun to school and make them regret it?
(Translated by Ruxandra Adriana Dodoiu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.