Siranuș Hakobian
Earthquakes terrify me. But that's why I adopted Mița, a brindle cat from Mars, who can sense natural disasters in advance. It's a well-known fact: cats can feel them, they get agitated, and you have time to grab your survival kit and run. A couple of false alarms made me rush into the street with my bag on my back: Mița had gone into heat. When the real shaking started, the coffee spilled from my cup, the concrete squeaked, and dear Mița calmly licked her fur, stretched out on the couch.
Nicolae Popescu
Hey, Vera, do Martians have cats? In the kitchen, Pricop is making small talk, while Vera peels carrots. How should I know? What's on your mind, looks like you've got nothing to do. Pric raises his voice: I'll get myself a talking Martian cat so I don't have to make conversation with you. Vera slams the knife into the chopping board: Listen, if you're so passionate about astronomy, before you get to Martian cats, you won't even see Mount Venus. And you won't see the stars in Gilda's attic either. We've pulled each others hair and I've banned her from having your intergalactic cock.
Ana Ludușan
My brother walks hunched over from the hard life he's lived, all for his family-spoiled children, a young wife, followed by two cats, brought from Mars, as my niece says. They're hers, but she commanded that the cats be raised in their natural environment, in the old, dilapidated house in the countryside. The money earned from a lifetime of toil hasn't even stretched far enough to fix the family home. There are too many needs for his wife and kids, all with higher education but no jobs, over thirty now. There's no work to suit them. I look at my brother and my heart breaks.
(Translated by Larisa-Marta Mreană / 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.