I did not hear her. To be fair, it wasn't exactly an outcry, but I should have seen it all in her eyes, her gestures, the tone of her voice. I was too busy healing myself and didn't realize I had transferred my suffering onto another body. Thirty years have passed, I've rebuilt my life, I have children and grandchildren, but I still haven't been able to forgive myself. Today would have been her birthday, and everyone in the family knows that. They will let me go to the cemetery with a bouquet of roses, and later, they will put up with me when I come home dead drunk.
Lucian Pătru
Chipped Tooth Beaver, Blue Euglena reporting. Landing problems on planet Moebius 4Q7. Docking system damaged. NeQui4 crew went on an expedition. Returned with a shot to the head. Muflon plague. Reserves of cracklings, pickled green tomatoes, rhubarb, and pumice stone intact. Foredeck lighting provided by Vipia2 lanterns. Engine room: 80% of levers rusted. Bottles of wine in cryogenic cocoons. Autopilot on anaconda maternity leave. Uranium processing turbines on hunger strike. Icon of Boca weeping.SOS. Send urgently
Ana-Maria Butuza
Maciek, a famous botanist, short and with messy hair, was studying in the garden wearing an ostrich egg on his head, engaged in a frantic dialogue with his floppy ears: "I'm completely drained, all my resources have melted away," he said at one point. Immediately, an S.O.S. was sent to the brain, where seven dwarves lived. The green one, Chlorophyll, struck the gong, announcing meal time. Maciek remembered his frog-eye sandwich with dandelion mayonnaise. He pulled it out, drooling, but the Venus flytrap was quicker. It spat out his shoes and the hat brim.
(Translated by Constantin Grigorescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan / Edited by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.