When two people fight, Jimmy jumps in[1]. He didn't get his Mediator Certificate from SettleInConflincts.com for nothing. The best 100 dollars he could ever spent. In less than two hours of passive participation, he felt ready to defuse any potentially dramatic quarrel. As soon as he saw two people having difficulty talking on the street, he would, placatingly, intervene, waving some chloroform underneath their noses and peace would be reinstated almost instantly. He then would lean them against a wall, embraced, and go merely on his way to the next conflict.
[1] "Când doi se ceartă, al treilea câștigă", Romanian idiom meaning "When two people fight, a third one wins".
Laura Stanciu
Kim made her roomate at Columbia University spill her secrets on their first day. You were saying you're an actress, Haily? You know, just starting, in a probation period. I made it through a casting and I was offered to go in a niche area. At least it's lucrative, at least until I'm done with law school. Great! Hollywood couldn't help but list you. Well, all sex sells. For now I'm a fluffer, meaning that I help the main actor to have an erection between scenes, as more and more are refusing to take Viagra.
Titela Durnea
Give me a break, Filip. What's at stake then? Is the journey more important? Seriously, if I end up in a swamp in the end, should I be happy and fulfilled because I traveled dressed in a white lace dress, shared smiles and gracefully wiggled my four fingers like Elizabeth? Spare me, my darling, from this close-mindedness. I'll fight to the last. I want to see the sun at the end of the road, Philip. Capisci?[1] She got up, bet all the chips on the red, odd cards, and drew hungrily from her cigarette.
[1] from Italian, meaning "Do you understand?"
(Translated by Alina Bâznă / 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.