He was very surprised when he entered the room for the first time. The books on the shelves looked like sparrows huddled together on the village telegraph wire. A thick tome with the air of a squadron leader frowned at him and gasped briefly: where to? He shrugged. He had no purpose. A few poetry books laughed thinly. Then the fat tome spread its wings and flew out the window. They all followed it. A romance novel and another of adventures seizedit in and lifted it to the sky. The world was cool from above.
Ana-Maria Butuza
After the horrific and unsolved murder, the once beautiful mansion was now inhabited by a family of spiders and a family of mice. The mothers shared the kitchen. The dads, the spacious living room. The children the rest of the rooms and the library were inhabited by the old spider Jackins. The grandfather read the old books from cover to cover and weaved in his ripe mind the scenarios of the crime that no one remembered. Shortly before biting the dust, he managed to unravel the mystery. He didn't get to say it, but he left a hint.
Corina Nina
Most of all, at school, I hated the first essay in Romanian class. What did you do during your summer vacation? I never knew what to write. As the holiday began, the street emptied of children. I was playing chess by myself, on the bench behind the block. Dad used to say that the only person who could really beat me was myself, so I had no reason to compete with anyone else. But it was nothing to write about this. In July, a library was opened on the ground floor of the building. I can't wait to write about how I circled the Earth in 80 days.
(Translated by Ioana Andreea Radu / 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.