I like your fair skin. Take your top off, the afternoon light will take care of the rest. Your hair looks lovely. You could really be a model if you'd just trust me. May I kiss your neck? Look how beautiful your smile is when you let yourself be touched. Would you like a smoke? I have something to help you relax. You don't have to be afraid, you were made for this kind of life. Come on, if you take your skirt off, this shooting will be about a different you. I know what I'm doing. Success starts when you let go of your inhibitions.
Titela Durnea
I've been laughing and crying uncontrollably for two hours. If you were to open the door now and look at me, you'd say I'm in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. I want to be able to process, but my mind refuses to understand. I see your red, rebellious curls in front of me. You ask for a hot cappuccino, no sugar. The nimble hands dig for change in your green wallet. After that all I remember is that I loved you. Deeply. Intensely. 10 years. For two hours, your still hand has been imprinted on my retina, swaying in a dance of death over the upside down chair. I scream: why?
Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
She'd become a photographer to shut his grandmother up. Girl, I can see the future in the cards, your mom in the coffee grounds, you in pictures. You should become a photographer to order people about. A lot of people came to her. She helped a lot of them. Because she could make every photo shooting into a story. There was something in every shot that made her think of an uncertain but plausible future. More believable than coffee grounds or pieces of cardboard. One day the flash went off by accident. Her own picture. She didn't want it. She never did. She stared at the photo. She was empty. She didn't exist.
(Translated by Adela Neacșu / 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.