The organ grinder turned, turned, turned the crank. The music spread joyfully across the Corso. Ladies and gentleman, elegant couples, strolled along the boulevard. Some threw coins into the musician's hat, others asked for a planet. The parrot perched on the edge of the ticket box, searching for love for them. He was good, he knew how to do it. But, as evening fell, he began to scan the sky. When he spotted the reddish dot appearing on the horizon, he quickly hid under the man's coat. He chirped in fear. Mars was rising, the planet from which the cats come.
Dan Banu
The transport ship docked at gate 14. It brought materials and personal parcels for the workers, and was set to load ore. Alec heard the cat first. The regime had decided that only men could work on Mars, while women were on Venus. No regulation mentioned cats. From Mrs. Smith to Mr. Smith, Mark read on the accompanying document. Strange, the woman died last year. Mark shrugged. He bent down and read the tag on the collar: I do not regret anything that was, only what was not.
Răzvan Drăgoi
The cats sales come from Mars. It's unclear what they sell, but it's certain that one cat equals Sică x 3.14. To sell something on Mars, you need to take Elonie Muscă[1]'s SpeisEx, making a space stop until the second. The first one is on the Moon. The surface area of the planet Mars equals that fat French guy, Pierre squared, because the Flat Mars Society has proven it's flat. It used to be a sphere, but the cats sold it, piece by piece. The cats - they come from Mars, sorry for the alcohol ad, but Martian wine is wonderful, it makes your head empty.
[1] Reference to Elon Musk.
(Translated by Cristina Ioana Bontea / 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.