It seemed like the road was never ending and I was starting to regret not taking a car. I'm gonna get there tired as hell. Suddenly I realize the street is deserted. Where have all the people I was tripping over a moment ago disappeared to? But strangely, I'm moving slower and slower. Dad's words come to mind: the closer you are, the harder it is. What a foolishness. Anyway, it's not long now. Now I can see that the people I had passed through a little while before were sticking to me; or maybe not them, just their images. I shake myself and enter the building.
Florentina Enache
In the helmet, the sensors had gone haywire, and the electronic display was flashing alarmingly: lethal exposure in 6 minutes, distance to safepoint - 3,500 meters. He made a forced jump and, after a few dozen seconds, thanked the gravity that was holding him. He prepared for another six jumps. A second before the solar flare burned, he plunged into the selenian cave and rolled into the depths. The last flickers of his headlamp illuminated the inscriptions on the wall. He read being stunned: Gogu was here; with cheese.
Florina Hegedüs
Pilot Sam, my fiancé, goes up first. I'm next, co-pilot. Last up is Don, flight engineer. The tower is giving commands, it's a velvety evening, playful fireflies, stars. We climb. In the cabin's ambient light, we're taking orders. The purity of nothingness, the thin air from up here, from up here, gives me the gush to speak. I'm expecting a baby, I say and freeze. Sam puffs out his chest, deflates it when Don tells me: thank you. We dive, engines off. The airport tower control's screaming in the helmet: cut the drama, you're already ten thousand feet off the ground. The sky is below.
(Translated by Ioana Levîrdă / 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.