When the waters retreated, mud and a village of Iovi[1] people remained behind. God giveth, God taketh, blessed be the name of the Lord. He wiped off his snot with his sleeve and emptied the wheelbarrow full of dead things. His mother was throwing water over the carpets on the fence, his father was staring at the sky, gosh, cloud merchant I should a become, he said. They heard clucking from Salvina's yard and all three squelched through the sludge up to the fence. The spate had swept the crone's cote away and brought a Dacia car instead. Salvina was laughing with 3 hens in her arms, in the backseat.
[1] Iov is a biblical poem dealing with the question of why honest people are so cruelly tried by fate. That's why the text talks about Iovi people.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
I lived at the edge of the world, between the rank river and the iron road. The working people had erected blocks of flats on that lea. One could hear moaning, cursing and an unwanted child sobbing. When it rained, the waters carried the dead livestock from the farmstead with an American name over to the other bank. We jumped in puddles together with the frogs and got ourselves smeared from head to toe with muck, till we couldn't tell anymore who was dark-skinned or not. When they fired Dad from Țigarete[1] factory, we left for England. The old life crumbled with the factory of yesteryear.
[1] The word țigarete is translated as cigarettes.
Mihaela Scânteie
Up North, February, stone cold. Them, in a Dacia car. They were heading for the gravel pit, to negotiate a contract over sand. He was a sporty driver. She was smoking. At a tight curve, there was a bam, followed by a crshhht and a bang. What was that, she asked, frightened. Think we got a flat tire, he answered. He dialled a friend who sent over some guys with a toolbox and a bottle of vodka. Them, in the car, under a blanket, guzzling the vodka, the things between them were getting hotter, fogging up the windows. The guys outside were changing the tire.
(Translated by Ioana Ștefan / 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.