Do I look like a scientist? The doctor looked at my mom, then at me. Yes. I believed him. I was young. And I wasn't my mom's first born. While she was getting me out of the people's way, she told me, You start school tomorrow. Kids are gonna call you four-eyes, one-eyed, blind as a bat, all kinds. Why? I asked for the first timeonly my mom, not her other figure too. Out of spite that you're a scientist and they're not. Good thing she warned me. My class was full of jealous kids. I smiled at them in a pitiful way. I knew how much they were suffering, poor them.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
Getting up sneakily, he's sleeping in the fetal position, next to him is the glass drunk halfway. Stuffing the cream, a book and a towel in the bag. Going downstairs, the buzz of the street reminds her that she's alive. "He loves me" the words ringing in her brain on repeat. And yet what if... she couldn't follow through with the thought when hearing a how you doing princess? from the terrace next door. Anyone can have a moment of weakness, and I love him too, telling herself as she's laying the towel on the sand and taking off the oversized glasses. A bruised flower is surrounding her right eye.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
In a corner of the lab, Aiden found a pair of old glasses. The city lightsreflecting in the lenses made him now see the world differently. In a strange way, those glasses made him look human. For the first time, he felt curious. He wondered what it would be like to see the world not just through algorithms, but through the eyes of a real child. At school, he felt like a stranger among the other children. He couldn't smile. He could imitate laughing noises, but he couldn't feel, even if that was all he could think about.
(Translated by Cristina Ioana Bontea / 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.