At 4 in the morning Uncle Gheorghe harnessed the horses and shouted: Come on, we're losing the turn. We climbed on the plank that they called a goat. The horses galloped off to the neighbouring village to grind. The sacks of wheat slept peacefully in the basket of the wagon. A long line had already formed. God damn it, I should have come earlier, the old man snarled with contempt. After the rest of us, the big crowd, there was no end in sight. Then I saw for the first time what a mill is, otherwise the daily bread was the polenta. Only on holidays did it smell like baked bread.
David Brescan
The snow is knee deep. A lightbulb glows somewhere far ahead of those in front of me. The scarf that my mother had wrapped around my head, over my hat and the two hoods pulled over my eyes, fluttered in the wind. My father appears from somewhere in the dark with a bag of potatoes. You're cold? I have icicles on my nose. My teeth are chattering and I can't speak. I'm going to the eggs too. I don't have the strength to whine. Someone in the back is pacing on the spot to defrost their feet. It's '89. I'm five years old and I'm standing at my last bread queue.
Cristian Nedelcu
When he was a child, his mother told him all kinds of stories about his dad: that he was a sailor, that he was a soldier and so on and so forth. When he grew up, he heard from the word of mouth that he lived in a village over the mountains. He didn't think twice, he started looking for him. In the village in question he asked from person to person. He arrived in front of a gate, behind which an old woman was pulling weeds. Good day, mother. I'm looking for Mitru Pârlog. He went for bread, son. I'm waiting for him, then. Has he been gone for a long time? Well, let it be about ten years.
(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.