It's unfair to be aware of our ephemerality. It seems unfair not to speak the same language as the plants, the animals, the stones, I mean those with whom we live among. I would like to know what the moon in the sky thinks about. It's unfair to start, with age, to outlive my lovers. It's not fair to be able to watch myself slowly transform, cell by cell. It is also unfair not to be able to look God in the eye and tell him when I'm struggling, when I'm hurting, to ask him where he took my father. What a freak show.
Horațiu Dudău
When I promised you the moon in the sky, I wasn't kidding. It's just not that easy to catch it. See, she's hiding behind the clouds. Plus, it's not always whole. Sometimes it's half, sometimes it's a quarter. Sometimes it's not there at all. And I want to bring it to you full. Because I can't live without you. But I guess I have to get used to it. I hope you packed everything. I'd also like one of your special sandwiches. If you please, one last time. I'm sorry I promised you the moon in the sky. The sun was a better idea. That way maybe I'd only be gone for the day.
Marian Bircea
Everyone wants it, not just women. The Russians, the Americans, even the Chinese. You know, the ones with the chopsticks and soy sauce. They say they'll first terrace it and then turn it into a rice mill. They'll sicken the moon with all that rice. A brave undertaking that requires considerable effort on the part of the rising liver people. Didn't they make the Great Wall? They did. To be fair, the moon is three hundred thousand miles away. Then again, they'll also make a human chain to pass the rice grains from hand to hand. I mean, it's a billion and a half of them.
(Translated by Andreea Georgiana Bogdan / 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.