I enter the cabinet alone. Mom says that's what grown-up kids should do. She waits for me outside. My doctor's name is Mihai, and he claims he's a psychologist. He has blue eyes. Blue is my favourite colour. He asks me about my father. I tell him how I killed my father. I had been praying for years that he come home sober or not come home at all. Grandma says that children's prayers always come true. The day he got hit by a car, I knew I was responsible for it. Mihai writes something down in a notebook. I'll see you next week.
Fabiola Stoi
I'm waiting my turn for an interview. The woman next to me dressed flawlessly, in office attire, reads something about communication. That's my first job interview and I'm a wreck. My mind swirls with books, articles, laws and case studies. I choose a chair and wait. The couch next to me crowds immediately. When the time comes, I'm called in and enter. I cross the hallway between my chair and the interview room. It feels like a 30-meter tunnel. I go in and answer the questions. It took me one year to understand that the tunnel was only 5 steps long.
Sanda Burță
I like that happy-student aura of yours, he told me one day. I couldn't close my eyes all night. You don't mess around with Novac. He's arrogant and misogynistic. The fatal combo. Before his exams, the church on the corner was full of devout students. He's going to fail me anyway, so I'd better sit this in the fall, I told Olivia. You better take my miniskirt and go now. I failed. When he wrote down my grade in the notebook, he smiled. Sadness suits you as well. I passed it in the fall, I married him in my third year. They say this granny aura suits me as well.
(Translated by Bogdan Macarie / 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.