The Midsummer Fairies[1] had started to dance in a hora[2]. Who doesn't perish, joins in the dance, the heat is rising, the earth lights up. He took a sip of the brackish water. The hay smoldered under the burning spears. He would rest for a breathing. The girls with hair undone climbed up the freshly-scythed haystack. The hay they threw in the air turned to embers. Like bewitched, the young man joined in the dance. Father would like this so much, he thought. He called out for him, but no sound came out. Muted by the heat, he hadn't noticed. Who doesn't perish, joins in the dance. The shades of death loomed over his father.
[1]Sânziene in the original Romanian; mysterious fairies with magical powers that bless people and animals, strengthen marriages, and heal people.
[2] Folk dance of Romania, usually performed in a circle.
I watched my slippers melt like ice cream, and then the floor melted and a big, chilly pit opened up under me, why the hell could I not spill into it. Someone called out to me in a sharp and probably scared voice, alarmed by my possible disappearance. No. It was the wife, only sharp. Do you want the meat rolls in vine leaves with tussilago? No my mother made thim with cabbage leaves. We had evolved, if we had all listened to the ignorants, now we would be in caves hunting mammoths. Ah, mammoths is good, is meat. And I am not hungry, dear, I ate up two beers with Pișto. Fast food.
Iulia Anastasia Roșca
Knock-knock! Who' there? It's me, the heatwave. The icicles jumped a bit. That doesn't sound good to me, Radu. In a few minutes we will melt away and that's it. You are being too negative. How do you know that's it? Maybe there is life after frost. Plus, we would be completely transformed, we would be liquid. Maybe we go back to the big ocean where we came from. Maybe we reach Nirvana. Radu, we are two aged icicles in an old freezer, you are dreaming. Since you've started meditating, you've gone mad. A heatwave is not the way to Nirvana.
(Translated by Ioana Grințescu / 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.