I saw the headlights coming speedily towards me and then I was surprised to feel the collision. It took me by surprise that something like this was happening to me, for I had the lucky coin inside my breast pocket, where a rib had bruised my lung. Judging by the number of fractures that I possessed and by the fact that I lost my spleen and a lung, the accident must have been a big one. I wanted to downgrade my talisman to a petty nickel, but I realized that the coin was indeed a lucky one. It didn't have any scratches.
Andra Toropoc
He was waiting. Small and straight, beautifully dressed, with his hair combed, with clean shoes, he listened to the voices of the adults who had come to choose a child as they moved away from him. It can't be, this time I'll be lucky too, I'll also leave together with a mommy, the little boy said to himself. And he was waiting patiently. From time to time he would reach into his coat pocket and touch the metal token found in the grass on Easter. This time it would be fine, he encouraged himself, for he had been provident and had glued a four-leaf clover to the token.
Aurelian Țolescu
I was in China, in another lifetime, at a temple where there could be found an enormous cauldron full of water and at the bottom of it, in the direction of the cardinal points, there were some small cups. Despite being married, I was in love. Tradition dictated that you throw a coin into the water of the cauldron and if you hit a cup, your wish drawn on to that particular cup would come true. I threw it at the one with love drawn on it and, from the first try, I got it right. Was it perhaps a hoax? When I came back, I got a divorce, and I later got another one. Now, I only use the Revolut debit card.
(Translated by Oana-Elena Dragnea / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.