Cousin Goguțu is the most downtrodden in the family. Auntie kept him busy with either the hoe or the cow. A big lad, and not once has he set foot in the city, let alone abroad. I decided to do him a favor and invited him over for a week. He refused to fly. It took him two days to get here, and then he complained about his sore rear for another two days. In the elevator, he said the Lord's Prayer, and when he saw my neighbours, who were people of color, he screamed that he wanted to go back to Auntie. He refused to get off the subway, saying he wouldn't go underground while alive. I should have just shat myself and eaten him roasted. Doing good deeds.
George Dometi
At first, I dug graves in my little underground town. Only the ones who were prepared entered there. I carved from dry stone the counted steps on the main path. But lately, they keep coming. I can't keep up with the collection of life's fractures. Too many with overdue dates all at once. My dead are asleep. But someone has awakened them. Now they stand grouped in the front line on the road to oblivion. They jostle and argue. They feel they will receive neighbours. There's a great crowding in the cemetery of my aborted souls.
Cecilia Fofiu
Dusk painfully splits over the bustling metropolis. On the outskirts, in cardboard shacks, mothers wash their children in rusty basins amidst a cheerful commotion, as if worries are stopped by the wire fence that separates them from the hurried city folk. Lae, grinning from ear to ear, pulls the bellows of his accordion to the delight of a young boy who hops and snaps his fingers rhythmically. Play, uncle, loud enough for the saints to hear you, so they might toss a few coins, it's a big celebration. It's a long way to the saints, but the gentry will hear us tomorrow in the market and they'll give some coins, Lae grins.
(Translated by Diana Georgiana Rădăcineanu / 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.