At the break of dawn, my studio apartment is smoldering on floor ten. It burns spontaneously and fuels my urge to do something mad, which I had been thinking about on sleepless nights. I wait for midday and jump in the sun's embrace, which ferries me to city hall, where I've got business. I shove my head inside an office where some ladies, glazed like sponge cakes with sweat, sit idly. They demand to know what I want, I throw myself in the chair, wave a clip folder in the air and say: if it's not too much bother, could you be a dear and fetch me a glass of water? Cold.
George Dometi
Some say anyone can be a writer, it's enough to write. If you just know how to write, you are not a writer. Just as a man holding a stick is not a fisherman and a man holding a tool is not a gigolo. I get the burning. The live fire of words unsaid smoldering inside you like in hell and blah-blah after blah-blah and you want to extinguish it by writing. At most, you are an illiterate fireman of tangled lexemes, a Dadaist scribbler of phonemes, a dumb parrot of words already uttered. Come now, have a cold beer and put them out.
Adriana Patroi Miu
Walls as far as the eye could see. Dust. The young man barely standing on his two feet. The sandals had shielded him a while, then they had started chaffing. The sun grew bigger. He ascended slowly, carrying with him the heavy baggage. The water in his bottle melted before reaching his lips. What are you doing in this wilderness, good Christian? asked the monk who opened the gate. Looking for good people, Father. I have had enough of evil. And why have you come here? There are good people everywhere in the valley and up the mountain. And evil people. Go and see to your own way.
(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.