Baloney

Ionuț Morariu
She was seven months pregnant when they laid her to rest. Three days after the funeral, flowers appeared on the grave under the dress of the little swallow and a bump in the ground that was still wet. A week later, from pistils, but especially from grandmother`s tears, he appeared. It wasn`t exactly a full-time pregnancy, as the neighbours gossiped. Neither it was easy, as the gravedigger who midwifed him confessed. There was proof in the mud he had gathered under his nails to remind him of his mother. After 3 hours they gave him formula milk. But he refused them. The boy was already craving baloney.

George Dometi
Let`s say two cows were standing on the top of a mountain. A stork, in a crane-like style, was swaying from one foot to the other right next to them. The stork, Pleșu Vian, asks: Which peak is higher? To which the renegade cow chews over a quick and ridiculous reply: The sky. Meaning? The roof of your mouth? No, the moon's. Which moon? The thirteenth one. Aha, it's Friday. Now I get it. Alright, then explain it. Well, how should I put it, the stork stammered. The cow stared at him with one eye only. Did you drink milk when you were little? I see you can't catch jokes. You seem like whey, my friend.
 
 Elena Fermuș
Ça va, ma poupée parisienne? Oui, mon Gigel. How could this not work out, mon amour? Voilà, sitting cross-legged in the nearest bush to the Eiffel Tower, eating little fumé baloney schnitzels. A picnic. Isn`t it bien. We even threw in a clove of garlic, \'cause that's how we like it. Come on, mon chéri, tell me that doll story again, but in Parisian, man, \'cause it sounds great to my ears. Throw in some je t'aime, too. And ease up on the noxious gases, cher Gigel. Stop burping, you reek of baloney and you're polluting Paris. Do you want the Eiffel Tower to fall on our heads?

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