The Bell Rings

Monica Bologa
My classmates bursted through the door, racing down the hallway, cramming up the stairs, shouting, shoving, elbowing, then scattering across the schoolyard, eating their sandwiches, neatly packed in colorful little boxes. I sit down under a tree, pull a pretzel out of a bag, and eat. Some kids laugh at me, and one throws a rotten apple which hits me in the stomach. The lunch break is over, the children rush back to class, but I jump the fence and head to a park, to swing on the swings. When I got home, I told my mom I had made a lot of good friends at school today.
 
 Ioana Epure
On the day I was born, it was snowing as if God wanted to wed the earth to the sky in the whitest wedding dress. One could smell the cries in the air, and my mother looked at the hospital window as if it were a painting she couldn't make sense of, as if she were in a museum. The snow fell obtuse and silent, without explaining a thing. Just as obtuse was the fact that I had to explain myself to her from day one, and for a long time after that. That "long time" came to an end when my own new-born, my chattering little one, suddenly fell silent in my arms. That was when the bell signalling the break rang.

Sonia Ungureanu
 
First, the bio teacher. Then the maths teacher. Then the librarian. Cancer, heart attack, cirrhosis, they all left this world at the start of September. The Latin teacher had been gone for half a year, and they knew nothing about her. When they saw her post in the group chat on The Feast of the Assumption of Mary^[1]. Everyone was thrilled. On the first day of school, the principal rang the school bell. The church bell across the street echoed back. The news struck like lightning upon the teachers' lounge. Where are you off to, Mrs? students commented on Facebook. Ad astra, replied a thought.

(Translated by Maria Loredana Constantin / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)