Tell me where you live, and I'll tell you who you are. Underground, a troglodyte. In the Maldives, a formula one pilot. In an apartment block, secretly poor. That's how the game goes. But where do the ones who no longer live anywhere stay, grandpa? That's what Matei wants to know. That's what grandpa would like to know too. Maybe on the moon, the boy suggests. Maybe, grandpa replies. Is that where dad is too? You see him there, don't you? No, I don't see him at all. Well, he's hidden in the light of the unknowable. Matei doesn't understand, but he doesn't cry. Matei is a big boy. And big boys live wherever they want.
Lucian Pătru
I have returned home. Returned? Actually, I've never been here before. The years spent on Earth were only because I kicked a lot in my mother's belly. Such cruelty is shown to a child. But that's how we learn good manners. From an early age. I didn't even blink when I threw that time away in the dumpster of recyclable lives. Now I'm waiting for you to feed me comet milk, living jams of auroras, and cotton candy spun from supernovas on a stick. Hesitant little pine tree, let me walk on your back. Come on, embrace me, moon. I am your wandering son.
Marian Bircea
Lord, give me a woman according to how much I can love. Where are you coming from? The Moon? But He did. Tall and beautiful, all the way up to the stars and back. I have twice as much to caress and kiss, but it's worth it. She's so tall that it gets dark when she stands in the doorway, and I have to go rock climbing just to kiss her. But as they say, I've got something to conquer every night. Despite the bets that didn't give us more than a year, we got married. Before the concept of three-in-one came along. Because she came with her mother too.
(Translated by Miruna-Gabriela Flipache / 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.