On the Stadium

Iulia Biro
Partly for his own sake, partly because of her friend (he doesn't feel accepted and understood, dear, try to be more considerate), she let herself be dragged on the stadium, on a Saturday morning. Maybe you'd like to run with us, he said, with a fanatical look. It's a feeling of communion with the others, it's addictive. That's it, she said. Mutual acceptance and tolerance, baby, that's how it works. She watched him run for a while, even waved at him, than she lay down on the benches, in the sun, with her book. She might have even fallen asleep. She enjoyed it.  

Monica Bologa
  I do one lap, and by the second I feel like I'm suffocating. I want to stop, but I notice three handsome men by the side of the track. I gather my strength, control my running, chest forward, let my hair loose from the elastic and let myself be seen in all my splendour. I reach them, smile at them, then I trip over my shoelace and sprawl out on the second lane. I pick myself up from the slag without looking at them. As I'm about to leave, one of them says to me ironically: Your nose is bleeding. You were drooling a few minutes ago. Tomorrow I'll run in the forest.  

Arthur Ianoși
when I go, I encounter the same problem, they don't let me in. The reason? They say I'm too young, and my face doesn't help either. The guys at the gate look like they were made with a carbon copy, clones of the Dolly's clone. The same happened today as well. I hand over my ID, they look at me and say it's fake. Sir, it's me, I'm just short. Kiddo, are you calling me stupid? God forbid, you're just unlucky when you think. It's practically impossible to underestimate you. You're living proof that breathing is one of the conditions to existence. I'm 35 years old. Oh, you're a dwarf, just say so.

(Translated by Maria-Ilinca Darie / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)