Tell me more about Greuceanu[1], Grandma, I begged her. And grandma repeated the story tirelesslyand I listened to her with my chin resting on my hand. And Greuceanu went into the dragons' pantry, she said softly. Nooo, I screamed immediately, you forgot to say that he first had to bend over backwards three times that he turned into a fly,it's the only way he could get in through the keyhole. Eh, granny forgot, she smiled at me, while wiping her glasses with the hem of her dress. Time also forgot to stop, although I asked him to and I'm still asking him to. Just one more day I want with her.
[1] Greuceanu is a Romanian folk tale collected by Petre Ispirescu. The eponymous character is a hero from Romanian mythology.
Bogdan Sebastian Burjan
When he went out biking it was a nice afternoon. Over the still green hills of his childhood. It was a narrow road. Ups, downs and a few smooth bends. He could see on the side valleys and other hillsides. He pedalled gently and slid downhill. Then he was climbing. Night caught him on the hills. He pedalled smoothly, up towards the moon. Among the stars he could see his little house. A candle still flickered in the night. A child was writing. To Real Fictions. He held out his hand and a napkin. To wipe his old glasses. From the stardust.
Iulia Biro
She keeps them in the drawer of her makeup table. Metal-framed, oval, silver, for job interviews. Large-framed, light blue, for volunteering at art festivals. Frameless for your 20-year college reunion. Sunglasses, for sitting on that hipster terrace downtown. With pink-purple highlights for Tinder dates. None of them are prescription, but they frame her eyes nicely and give her that reader's look that everyone's crazy about, although who the hell reads these days?
(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.