She turned 90, she's depressed because she has no one to gossip with anymore. She wants to live to see the next generation of gossipers buried. She can't go outside because of the blazing sun. I found her a gossip channel where Western women over 60 get married to Nigerian men who are slightly over 30. Are they blind? Numbers don't just indicate your age, I enlightened her when she wondered what the crones saw in those ugly men. Is a trip to Nigeria expensive? Mother-in-law, I'll sacrifice myself to see you happy. I'll take a loan and a plane ticket. One way.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
The sun has started to lose its brightness. The sky is becoming darker and darker, and night and day are blending into one perpetual twilight. Deep darkness cloaks the Earth, and fear gnaws at everything. People look at the sky but they're too busy to realize what is happening. Another war, another stock market crashes. The air is filled with noxious fumes, their breaths turning into the holograms of troubled ghosts. Beyond this hustle and bustle, the planet seems to be holding its breath. Tick-tock, tick-tock.
Aurelian Țolescu
I guess this was my talent. To stare at the light and face the people. I have enlightened many, and I have conveyed warmth and love, as much as my eyes could, blinded as they were by life's solar storms. With time, almost all the people I have loved, guided and helped, left my side. Now, looking in the distance, I can see that even those in whom I had placed my hopes for the future, although they appear to be close to me, are finding other places with brighter sunshine. I will remain in the peace of the warm light of my sunset.
(Translated by Alina-Alexandra Șovar / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.