Growing up in the country, among efficient and productive people, the concept of flowering tree or meadow with dandelions meant results. It grows fruit or casts shadow, hay to mow and grass to cut. The magnolia, though, was something else. Of course, there weren't any in his village, you can't eat them, but there were in the city. Although he hated the idea of living in a building, to have magnolias at your window was something even a pragmatic wanted. He bought the studio with magnolias. In the spring, he would wipe the windowsill stained by the fallen petals. Damned aesthetics.
Siranuș Hakobian
When I had the miscarriage, an excrutiating pain was eating me alive. I laid on the carpet and, waiting for a soothing death, I started counting the stains on the ceiling. In that moment the explosion happened and the fleshy flowers opened up shamelessly in my window, like grails of ephemeral fertility. I couldn't take so much infatuation, so I grabbed my axe to cut off my own jealousy. When I was by the tree trunk, I changed my mind. Why, God, can't you give me a daughter? I got lucky. God was up in that tree.
Marius Stan
Just to be clear, I don't like magnolias. This thing with branches and pink petals and tenderness doesn't impress me. It's too dolly, reminds me of Barbie, of Margot Robbie. I like people who love magnolias, though. Because they hide a deep wound, something painful, profound, a disappointment or a loss of hope, a wound which doesn't heal, a twig waiting to catch fire, a sharp pain in the heart, a heavy breathing, a recurring thought which doesn't tire, restleness, yes, restlessness.
(Translated by Raluca Sălcianu / 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.