He doesn't know her age. He met her in the train station park, and they've been living together since he made room for her on his bench. She's frail, poor thing, but a good girl. They're lucky they have one another because in the old days they couldn't have this with others. They put on thick clothes now, because it's cold, but tonight is terrible. He calmed her down and took her to his winter residence, encouraging her increasingly sluggish steps. She shivers badly. At dawn, with tears on their wrinkled cheeks, the homeless man obsessively repeats, they reconfigured the route of the pipes, cradling the breathless love to his chest.
Laura Stanciu
Max arrived home later than usual. At dinner, Mary told him coldly: I emptied your wardrobe. You don't deserve to have your clothes neatly arranged in a suitcase. I put them in bags. Your mistress can iron them if she'll have you again. Do you think she chose you for your smile with implants? If you hadn't had a wife, she wouldn't have bothered with you. That's how she got rid of a lot of work. She was looking for a husband, but stumbled upon someone else's husband and stated recalculating her route. Smart girl. She reached her goal faster. I found out you bought her a house.
Julia Sandu
Mommy, how did I come into the world? Oh, sweetheart, your story is a journey full of adventures. Your dad was a fan of Waize and liked to ride his motorcycle without a protective helmet. Mommy used gugle maps to learn how to park better. And so, one day, both of us were guided into a dead end, where mommy stumbled, dad slipped. Dad hit the brakes, mommy shifted gears, until dad gave it to mommy with rerouting, then we made bean soup with pork knuckle, and when I went to ventilate, there you were on the windowsill.
(Translated by Andreea Laura Stanca / 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.