Her name was Mathilda and she lived in the story of the Emerald Princess in volume XII, and his name was Luka, he lived in the Tale of the Gondolier in volume IX, the same shelf. The owners' son had brought them together while writing a literary thesis on "Love in XXth century literature". I love you, she said under her breath, blushing. I love you ten times more, he replied theatrically. I can't live without you, she whispered. Oh, but you know that if we leave the story we will become mortals, just like everyone else. They tied the knot on a Thursday.
Adina Colțea
They met in the elevator, every day, around the same time. They never spoke. They would stay silent together up until the 20th floor, where he would leave. She would smile with her eyes shut, another three floors, watching him fall asleep in her arms. The next day, around the second floor he took her for a ride on a boat, she brought him breakfast in bed. On a Thursday, he gifted her a drop of dew, she stuck dreams in his hair. The elevator plunged to the ground on a Sunday, when no one was around. Only the stories in their mind were never found.
Daniela Toader
She was born on a Monday at six in the morning. An unwanted child, abortion forbidden. At six, when all the other children wanted a bike, she wanted to be an astronaut. At eighteen she wanted to find love at first sight. At twenty she wished she had never met him. At thirty she dreamed of a soulmate. At forty she stopped wishing for anything. At fifty, when they found her hanging from the ceiling, her dreams were dangling, unfulfilled.
(Translated by Ioana Grințescu / 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.