I protest. For thousands of years, they've been fascinating the Japanese. Once in three days, while we have always basked in the eternity of a couple of weeks greeting spring by sitting under them at the table in the courtyard, soaking up vitamin D. The cat sleeps beneath them, grandpa too sometimes, grandma observes the wind stirring the petals and counts how much jam she will make. Without any big investments, without many subsidies, our thousand-year-old cheery trees are top 3 worldwide. Do they write stories about the light flowing through the pure petals of the Romanian cherry blossom?
Horațiu Dudău
He sat under the imaginary Japanese cherry tree, gazed at a Sakura and thought about writing a waka. In the same split second, the next-door neighbour sat down in his armchair, opened a beer, and played a Shakira to waka waka. Sakura was torn off the branch, wilting instantly. Shakira went wild. The garden began to nuclear incinerate the flowers. He would have moved out of this dump, but his wallet was a haiku made out of pennies. So, he boarded the plane and shouted banzai. He crashed in front of the Japanese restaurant, which opens at 7:45 p.m.
Elena Fermuș
Tell me, darling, would you change anything about me? Would you change my eyes? That's nonsense, princess, for I get lost in your eyes like in a sea of blue. Where else would I make waves? But my lips, my darling, would you replace them? How, when the world is shut, your lips, two petals? Never, my sweet cherry blossom. Not even this button nose? Would you have it any other way, perhaps a little pointy? No, baby, neither. You really don't want to change anything about me? Just the name, baby. Grandpa also calls his goat Sakura. And does she come?
(Translated by Andreea Georgiana Bogdan / 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.