I had teleported half a century ago. I was savouring an El Floridita daiquiri when I saw her. She was sitting on a chair at the edge of life, across the narrow street from a store from which came a dank, strong smell of tobacco. A cat slithered between her legs and made her laugh heartily. I didn't even see the vintage car that almost ran me over. Cuidate, querida, she said. She had flowers in her turban and a fan that stirred the wind. She let me take her picture. So as not to forget.
Arthur Ianoși
If butterflies tattooed women on their tiny legs, would they have more success with roses? thought Costeluș, aloud, and the thought stuck in his upper teeth, as he was struggling with a toothpick to get it out. I'll go and ask Mila about it, and so he did. At last he completed: Your butterflies on your ankle were a man-magnet, you were luck you bumped into me. Listen, gorgeous, to answer your question, do you think if you tattooed some roses on your cheek, you'd have more success when I slap you? Gorgeous grinned as if someone would take a picture of him. She was his alright.
Aurelian Țolescu
She had been a smart and beautiful woman. A quick-witted and nosy Moldavian, always up to date with the daily news. She read every day and always bought new books from the bookshop in the city. In her 70s, her curiosity for the new, her desire to get out of the house and communicate with other people faded. In the last year of her life she became ill and was hospitalized. After a CT scan, the doctor showed me the film and I saw that the encephalon had retracted far back into the skull. This was the last picture of her.
(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.