Western University's toughest teacher was life. It gave hard lessons and repeated them, until I got something out of each. What chance could a teenager newly arrived in a big city have without Google maps? I used instinct as a compass, bumping into everything in my path with immeasurable force. You only learn this class when you reach your limit. You suddenly wake up and you know the way. Someday, I'll thank that filthy dorm full of orphans and salahors because it steeled me when I was a mess.
Laura Stanciu
Mrs. Second was on her second university. She would go to seminars, take notes, get good grades, all while working hard at her job and taking care of her grandchildren. I'm 62 years old and I feel stronger than a freshman, she used to say. But the sessions would wore her out. She didn't sleep much, she had to write papers and reread lectures. One evening, when she came into the house, her husband asked her. Are you coming from the library? You look beat. Mrs. Second collapsed in her armchair. So broken, from the library? Oh, no. Our Pilates instructor overworked us today.
Daniela Toader
I take a sip of Amigo coffee. I take a pencil, I sharpen it. SSC. It's cold. Lia, I'm screaming. It's cold. We'll get a bca. We plug it in. The resistor's orange. I'm warming up with the thought. Power's out. Another fuse blew. I add a teaspoon of sugar to the Amigo coffee. It's sweet. Integrals. It's so cold I'm switching to neural nets. Automatic pattern recognition. 386, borrowed. I take a sip. The night of the algorithm written by me. It took me two days, but I split it. I listen to Elton John on the window. My legs dangle 5 meters in the air.
(Translated by Andreea Ciubuc / 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.