Blessed are the Merciful

Ramona Ungureanu
You might be one of those incubus-like beings, said the old woman at whose place I had stopped to rest. She was poking at the ashes in the fireplace with a stick as searching there for questions to ask me. When the need to travel strikes you, you feel, in a way, butterflies fluttering in your feet, am I right?. Yes, I answered, exactly that. I have to free them; they lift me up on their wings and, before I realize it, I'm already on the road. But here, at your place, it seems like they've settled. I'd linger for a while. It was drizzling outside. I had taken my shoes off and I was one with the mud on the floor. I know how it goes; you shall stay until the cabbage rolls are ready. Please, be more merciful.

Marius Stan
And I wanted to get my revenge. For all the pain stirred up with every seemingly accidental encounter, for the harsh words fired off from the hip straight through my heart, with hatred, with a smile on her face, for the way in which she grabbed his arm and turned her head toward me smiling. What treachery! After years and years of misleading words and embraces, after we had moved together and had bought furniture, after all of these. I could've caused her great suffering, greater than mine. But no.

Monica Ciurea
At least you be happy, our mother said gravely and then died. It seemed I was the only one who heard her, as the others had already went on to do their chores. The oldest daughter stopped going to school because there was no one to cook. The brother started doing jobs in the village, since no one feeds you for free. The middle one knew to sing when she was rocking me in her arms. As for me, the youngest one, I didn't really have it bad at all. At fourteen years old, I had discovered booze and cigarettes. At eighteen, so high. Twenty-five years old; it was awesome, sex was great. At thirty-one, a woman made me a child. I keep looking at him and say: Come on, child, at least you.

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