Blessed are the Merciful

Arthur Ianoși
It was on a Thursday that I started doing good deeds, the short hand of the clock pointing to one, the long hand pointing to five. Let's get this clear, this whole thing with the clock hands has always been giving me a hard time. Very much in debt as I was and following a confession where I learned that all good deeds are repaid tenfold, I had the feeling I could face any loaner. I started offering a hundred to every beggar in town. Their faces? Priceless. I sat down on the sofa, waiting for my reward. Knock, knock. I opened the door. Ten angry loaners were chanting my name. Calm down, now, I said.
 
 Neti Niculae
I wouldn't know, in this life I haven't been neither happy nor merciful. That's why God punished me to reach a hundred years on this Earth. When I came to the nursing home, everyone was in awe. Their generations did not live that long. I buried my own children and my only grandson. I've been at death's mercy for too long. After my last stroke I've been quickly discharged: a hundred years old? He is taking someone's place for nothing. I have no one left, the people from my time passed away one by one. The visiting hours at the nursing home are opening soon, so I should go to sleep. Maybe I'll be luckier this time: life will be merciful and I'll be happy at last.
 
 Andra Toropoc
I would always help her cheat on tests; I knew her parents would punish her for low grades. We got different subjects at the math test and she asked me to solve the hardest question from hers. I solved it on some scrap paper and she transcribed it carefully, but I did not have enough time left for my own paper and so Ididn't get the highest grade. She did, however, and kept boasting about how the teacher congratulated her. She didn't thank me, nor did I expect that from her, but what hurt me most was the way she'd laugh at my failed dream, that of graduating with straight A's. She did not laugh after the exam, however. Because she failed, and I didn't.

(Translated by Adrian-Florin Duță / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)