Daddy started to gobble up his food, boiling hot as it was, and I burst out laughing. My sister joined in. She was laughing her head off and her eyes were shining like stars. I laughed myself silly, too. Mummy got angry and sent us to the other room as punishment, waving a hand in the air, which made us laugh even harder. But it was cold in there, there was no fire, so we soon stopped laughing. We came back and promised mums we'd stop laughing and do the dishes ourselves. Behaving ourselves during dinner is such a punishment for us.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
They carried him from town to town in a mobile cage. And he, as you can imagine, was howling. During the day they tortured him in plain sight, but at night they left him alone because they were afraid he might die and then they wouldn't have anything to draw their money from. One day, he did what he did, and escaped. Everybody got scared, truth be told. He's the one who cursed them. I for one think so. Otherwise, I can't explain this mess. In a way, he's the last disciple. Or maybe the first, after all the debts he's racked up in his world. If you know what I mean.
Andra Toropoc
When youth smiled at them coyly, they had mocked it, had gotten it drunk on promises, and had bartered their ideals and romances between time and people. She gave them so much respite that they began to feel adolescent pangs again. They created a yearly shindig in which they would willingly lock themselves away to forget the expiration date beckoning them. They'd fool her on the dance floor, get her drunk, fall in love, and dream of one last train to nowhere. But the old coy one was already playing a game of Hazard, she had rigged the dice on which she had scribbled allegro ma non troppo.
(Translated by Ana-Maria Batog / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan, Edited by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.