It had all crumbled like a sand castle. No matter how hard you try to fortify it with shells, the sea doesn't forgive, just like that bastard of a driver didn't forgive her. He had slammed the brakes right in front of her. She was alone again. Now she walked around with a pillow under her clothes and made the rounds of every park in town, just to feel, once more, the empathy of other pregnant mothers or the kindness of the men on tram number 7, who would offer her a seat right away. She was forty-two and almost nine months had passed. She had to change cities.
Ramona Ungureanu
The girl was by the river, where he'd first seen her bathing. Once again she was singing while doing laundry. These idiots are multiplying quickly, he said to himself seeing the diapers on the rock. No matter how much he turned it over in his mind, he couldn't understand why she'd chosen that fool Grigore. He calculated quickly, seven countries, seven skies, seven rivers, seven forests. He drew his right eye, and threw it carelessly at the first beech tree, a curveball over the snake. It hit her right in the heart. She collapsed to the ground with an eye lodged between her ribs. I wasn't getting married anyway.
Florina Hegedüs
After a couple miles we stop. It happens and he throws me out of the car. If only I'd made it a quarter of the way. Here, in the road, I cry as I clean up my dirtied privates with wet wipes and I powder my bite marks. The boundary that protected me and that I crossed is behind me. The slightly reddening sun is retreating behind the trees. It smells of desolation. A car's headlights scan me and I put on perfume. I have a long way to go and a whole pack of wet wipes. I raise my hand as a sign that I'm here.
(Translated by Bogdan Nicola / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.