Sanda Burță
She's fat. Anyone who says she's not is lying. Or it's her mom. Or the therapist at school who said she's been through it, too and everything will be fine if she accepts and loves herself. Like if she accepts herself, she won't be fat anymore, like if she loves herself, other people will love her, too. Today is Ana's birthday, her classmate. Ana is not fat. She's beautiful and kind, she's invited her to the party tonight where she'd like to go but won't. She leaves her present on the shool desk, her Lucky charm bracelet. When they dance, she'll be up on the apartment building.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
She saw him in the park the other day, pushing his little girl's swing. In the grizzled daddy, overburdened with worldly worries, she hardly recognized the man she had fallen in love with years before, a cold morning star[1] looking down on them all, for whom she had entered the city phase, passed the county phase and, unexpectedly, made it to the national phase in Cluj, where she had received an honourable mention, which she had showed to him in class after Easter break, so that he could say with barely the tips of his lips: it was to be expected. Women are, by definition, mediocre.
Gabriel Rusu
Hey, Dumitrescu, sign it, it's for your own good. Nobody's telling you to snitch. You come once a month to securitate[1] and we'll sit down for a chat, a cup of coffee, for fuck's sake. Ain't nobody prying the words from you. Tell us how you're doing, how you are, what goods your neighbor's got, what's the price. By the way, I just remembered, ask if she's got a size 35, beacuse I could use a pair. Go on, put your John Hancock there and next month we'll smoke a Kent cigarette. What the hell, so many trials of conscience, Dumitrescu.
(Translated by Corina-Alexandra Belu / 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.