Go on, Radu, finish your food. Look, Ana has already finished, said the mother. Where's dad, he said that if I recite the whole poem today, he'd buy me that red toy car. His tiny voice was wriggling left and right around the kitchen, bumping into objects, and finally dropping on the floor, frozen. The seconds pounded their fists on her chest, bricks walled in her lips, yet she replied. He had to spend a bit more time at work today. Her gaze became a honeycomb where restless bees had gathered dew into, crafting a peculiar honey. Not sweet in the slightest.
Bogdan Mihai Bati
Let's grab a beer. An incorrect invitation from every point of view. A beer is never just a beer. Two beers make about half a beer, but four beers still don't make one beer. A beer is a beer and it'll let you know when it's been drunk completely. You just need to have a good ear, talent for doing the penguin walk, and your bladder and pouch full of conversation topics ready to go. Not to be mistaken for your inner voice. Come on dude, go home, you've had your fill. That is not the beer talking. That's the loser in your head feeding you nonsense in the voice of your wife.
Daniela Toader
We wandered through the red dirt of Rasova, barefoot. Beyond the bridge, the Danube. Not too far away. The clay stuck to our toes. The rain everybody had wished for fell right on the Sunday we'd arrived with the Sighet fast train, in the morning. Oh how many melons we'll smash! Eat the core, that's the good part. The very best. Slam it on the ground, to hell with it. That's what grandpa had told us, before stopping at the village tavern. We haven't seen him since. We were just kids, long ago, far away.
(Translated by Andreea-Nicoleta Ban / 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.