He couldn't sleep. He counted sheep, donkeys, dogs, wolves and bears, even the shepherds. He could barely think, his dark circles had turned aubergine, and moreover, the feeling of claustrophobia followed him even when he stepped out of the walls. He looked up in horror, as if the concrete and glass and steel were waiting for an opportune moment to collapse on him. He went for a run, thinking the movement would help him sleep. He came across a little park with a patch of grass. He lay down on his back and fell fast asleep.
Arthur Ianoși
I am a simple man. With habits. I kill my first alarm, on the second I yawn and stretch out, on the third I jump into the plastic slippers next to the bed, pull the robe on me, swear at the elevator, even though I'm sitting at 3/10, and make my way to the coffee trailer. Always the same. I walk past the block where Banksy first paint his traumas with roller , say hello to the Indian man on the corner who reeks of Masala, ask the Tesco saleswoman for a cigarette, and stop in front of Costa while I flip through the Daily Mirror. The coffee? Like the suburbs. Smoggy and bitter.
Camil Popescu
It takes a carnival participant five hours to get ready. I know this because I was in the Metropolitan Police headquarters when a twoo meters tall Nicaraguan woman in heels, red hair, with her face painted, wearing ribbons like a Christmas tree, had to bow her head and stick her temple to ceiling, as she complained to the six policemen that some of the threads holding her bright plumage together had come loose, for which three of them had immobilized her, and the other three were braiding the broken threads.
(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)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.