He opened the envelopes and counted the money for safety. He smiled contentedly, looking proudly in the small mirror on his desk. He figured the poor bastard in envelope three would have died anyway. He'd operated for nothing. He'd only gotten the attention through carelessness. He stuffed the envelopes in his breast pocket, went down to the parking lot and started home. He stopped at the starred restaurant to order duck breast to take home. When he opened the door of the cottage, the little cur almost jumped into his arms. Teary-eyed, he served the dog dinner.
Francesca Dorobanțu
They marched for weeks through a sullen world, a silence you were ashamed to break, and his most malnourished and degenerate comrades bore their suffering humbly. Around the villages, you couldn't catch a human, chicken or dog. The frosty air carried the smell of boiled potatoes, and John could swear he heard a soft, child's voice, a child's still, still, squeak. Struggle bit at the body and poverty at the soul, and death came mute, hungry and stinking, especially when survival depended on what you could slice and prepare.
Siranuș Hakobian
I loved him as soon as I saw his troubled, brown eyes with golden drops in the iris. I was dying to kiss him on his candid forehead, to brush the hair out of his child's eyes and look straight into his gentle soul. He left me unexpectedly once, after we'd made love. Why? I asked him. He couldn't stand, you see, me whispering in his ear words like drink or sit. Only then I realized: my lover had Mache's eyes, my first poodle. I didn't know what else to do and scratched between his ears.
(Translated by Victor Albei / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.