Paul Dârvariu
I'll rent it to you, but I can't guarantee it'll be of any use. It's packed, bursting with dirty jokes, sexual fantasies, and nudes in indecent poses. And poems. Shakespeare's sonnets, perhaps? Nah. Naughty verses by Păstorel, Pribeagu, Brumaru. Masterpieces of world art? Those too, but at the top of the list, you'll find L'Origine du monde by Courbet. There are also a few boring things: the multiplication table, the Pythagorean theorem, the theory of relativity-but what would you even do with those nowadays?
Aurelian Țolescu
I was renovating my studio on the top floor, wrecked by the seven cats of a well-behaved tenant, and I was thinking about how to find a new one. I hadn't even finished the thought when a trustworthy-looking woman with unreal blue eyes knocked on the door and asked me to rent it to her. I handed her the key immediately, and the next day she moved in with her boyfriend and daughter. My peace was gone. The phone kept ringing with complaints from neighbours about the antics of that madwoman. After 18 months in jail for grand theft, she now wants to sue me because she no longer has access to the studio.
Camil Popescu
Attic for rent. Located halfway between mIRC and TikTok. Ideal for middle-aged tenants who enjoy sharing stories from Kaufland and Mega Image, talking about walking the dog and what the neighbor on the third floor has been up to, recounting their new aches along with the remedies, some gossip here and there, a few life lessons thrown in, plus a guess who sent me a friend request today or an old song from back in the day, reminiscing about how good life was. Give me a break! I'm done with this valley of sighs. Moving offline.
(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / 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.