Freckles would appear whenever she fell in love. That morning, the crowded streets of the city carried her hurried steps, and just a second and a half was enough for their gazes to meet at the crosswalk. In that moment, her freckles lit up like a constellation on the sky of her face, but they couldn't pierce the deep darkness of his black eyes, too pensive, too dark, like a moonless night. Her heart froze as the man passed by her, like a cold wind passing through rocks.
Ana-Anca Răstășanu
Melania was the little girl in the last row, the girl who played alone at the edge of the ditch, the girl who completed the team after the choices were made. And not because she used social protection cream. From her braided ginger pigtails, fragile little legs, freckles on the tip of the nose and beautifully contoured cheekbones, you would have thought she longed for vitamin D. However, no matter how many supplements she took, it didn't satisfy her need. Naively, one day, while crying, she swore to invent a medicine that would genetically modify people's meanness.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
Until the age of two, she was a child like any other. Then the fluff on her crown turned into brass rings, and a butterfly of sunspots landed on her face. They first looked at her with amazement, then with envy. In that coastal town, people had olive skin and dark hair. When she started talking to ladybugs, they looked at her with hatred. She's a witch, they said. Exactly, confirmed the priest. On the night the flames embraced the pyre, a ship crashed into the rocks. The sea brought to the shore the body of a sailor. On his back, he had angel wings. En pointillé.
(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / 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.