Whatcha lookin' at, the more sombre one asks the last one to have arrived, who didn't seem entirely gnawed on the inside. Why, at the sun, says the last one. Can you see mother, asks the sombre one. If she's the woman walking down the road as if looking for her child, I see her. And is she able-bodied, asks the sombre one. Well if she's carrying those big bags, I'd say she is, the last one replies. And is she coming, asks the sombre one. If she's the woman you mean, she's right here. Mother, you told me you'd pick me up when the clock chimed, the sombre one said. But no one heard him anymore.
Daniela Toader
For as long as I have known you, you've lived with the hope that everything would work out. That the world, as petty as it revealed itself to you, was just a lying mirror you'd rather not look into. Ignore the news, don't read the newspapers, don't even engage with social media. Live far away from all this rot called society, and everything would sort itself out. Until one morning, when, tired of the solitude, you opened the window. It was too late. Through your empty eyes, a blind sun was gazing out on the world, defeated.
Ana-Maria Butuza
It was said that beyond the crest of the mountain, where only the chosen ones would end up, was the spring of eternal life. He longed to get there. Bent on it, he set out at the break of dawn, clambering without a break: with the sun in his eyes, in the rain, the wind pushing him from behind or trying to overturn him. When he was just a few steps away from the summit, the sky suddenly darkened, and the mountain shook. Not stopping, he went on, and, stepping on his shadow, was swallowed by the dream of immortality. An olive sapling cracked the stone to get to the light, joining the other older trees.
(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.