A shy froglet courts a she-froglet. One day he brings her a larva and puts it under her pillow, the next he surprises her with an earthworm for dessert. He sings to her Ludwig van Oac's Moonlight Sonata and is tickled with excitement whenever she repays his gestures with a smile or a sticky kiss on the lips. I'd give you the moon in the sky, he once ventures. Well, I think that's an exaggeration, she replies, but try it. So, on the first night of the full moon, he drives her on a leaf boat right under the moon mirrored in the water.
Adriana Patroi Miu
Selfish? Why do you say that? You left Codrin so remorselessly. He even gave you the moon in the sky. You stripped him like a worn-out coat. What do you know about us? Everything. You didn't care. Didn't it make you miss him when you saw him at Grandma's funeral? It did. Do you know what it's like to miss someone? Kind of like a chicken pox you can't treat. You get all these itchy, juicy blisters. You look at them with anger, with nerves, hoping they'll go away. And what have you done? Nothing. I took my soul and hung it on a nail. Happiness is a luxury.
Cristina Adriana Marincea
Millions of little girls stare at it every day in their early years as if it were a point, if not fixed, at least predictable. They whisper their wishes, their dreams, their worries and their prayers to her, they sincerely believe when they see her through the window of the moving car that it is only them that she is watching, that she is rising for them every day and that it is only them that she listens to their most hidden thoughts. One day, most of them grow up to understand scientific truths, but a few remain under the spell of magical thinking and invent symbolic stories locked in circles.
(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.