I joined a literary group. We write riddles. We meet every week at the Hunchback and each of us puts 100 lei in a bowl. When our turn comes, we read our latest creation. If no one guesses the answer, the author gets all the money, otherwise the prize is carried over to the next week. My riddle was this: it's round and it's snub-nosed and upside down would hang. I was such a fool. If, instead of acorn, I had written, at the end, pregnant bat's wife, I would have been loaded.
Monica Aldea
Tongue-tied is the president of the local branch of the Writers' Union in Blockhead. He studies the candidate's file and his eyes light up. Creative. Leana, 20 years old, no CV, but the photos recommend her. Strongly. One is at the brook with a book in her hands, another in the village Library, languorously clearing the shelves. He analyses them thoroughly. He feels the passion for writing growing suddenly and uncontrollably. Never has he felt so inspired. He writes on the file REJECTED. On his way out he says to his secretary: cancel the meetings, I'm going to marry.
Elena Mihaela Hristodorescu
She's looking at me over her glasses. It's not good. The eye-rhyme[1] is obsolete, novels don't sell anymore, too much description. I don't get discouraged. I write phenomenally and have a lot of ideas. Xenophobia, conspiracy, personal development, parenting, feminism, veganism, racism, sexism. Title: From Hanoi to Buenos Aires. Subtitle: The sufferings of the sexagenarian father Mingh and his pansexual wife, Maria Teresa de Todos Los Santos, trying to prove that Earth is flat. It wasn't a bestseller, but it paid my bills.
[1] Type of rhyme in poetry, where the first lyric rhymes with the third one.
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.