Metropolis

Monica Bologa
The building I live in mercilessly scratches the clouds. The steel walls, the furniture taken from Rome, the crystal chandeliers, the wife, the hypocrisy and all this luxury suffocate me. In sweatpants, an old t-shirt and sneakers, I leave the house. The insane traffic and hellish noise make me run. I get to the park, I lie down on the grass under a tree and I imagine I'm at grandma's in the garden. At one point, a beggar appears next to me. He hands me a pretzel: please, man, eat something too, because tomorrow you will be better.

Sorina Bascoveanu
At home lie sat at the table with them. She had left convinced that she would no longer be forced to put up with his nauseating chewing at three main meals and two snacks, but beliefs are not always our best friends and after a while she saw that her truth had cracked and that what was underneath was making her a known nausea. She had been keeping an eye on the back stairs and the supply elevator and had never seen her. How was that possible? Maybe because in the metropolis, lying is expensive and travels with the main elevator.
 
 Marian Bircea
I, Adrian, citizen of Rome, veteran centurion of the V Macedonica Legion, appointed imperial protector of Porolissum, Potaissa and Apullum, citizen of the metropolis of Ulpia Traiana Sarmizegetusa, elected member of the senate of the province of Dacia Felix, censor of the imperial roads from Drobeta to Napoca and their good preservation, is written on a funerary stela in the Lapidarium behind the Magna Curia building that houses the Museum of History in Deva. How did they succeed without feasibility studies and public-private partnership?

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