The bouquet left at home on the first day of school, the blotting paper I could never find, the autograph book by the window seat, the Turbo surprise collection in the secret drawer, the scarf confiscated by the biology teacher after the fight with the boys, the broken glasses from the dorm bathroom, the student ID left behind in the reading room, the diploma lost on the tram, the corporate badge tossed in the trash-everything chases me in a wild whirlwind shouting burnout, but I see a rabbit hole, let myself fall into it, and keep falling, deeper and deeper.
Fabiola Stoi
Lord, let them all go-I'm taking them out of my mind and my heart and laying them here. Do what You will with them, because I can't bear them anymore. Since the war ended, they feel even heavier. Take me out of this hell of fears and bring me the peace of forgetting. The woman was writing bent over the table in the garden, pouring letters into words, filling the pages with the pain of memories. When she finished, she lifted her gaze, and the clear blue sky settled into her eyes. A swarm of black flies got out from the pages on the table and disappeared into a gust of wind.
Paul Dârvariu
I absolutely love this hotel. The maids are kind and fluff my pillow before bedtime. The receptionist visits me every morning to ask me how I'm feeling. The doorman helps me find the entrance whenever I get lost in the courtyard. There's only one person I don't like: the fat woman who sits on my bed and claims to be my wife. I told her she's mistaken-I was never married. She keeps bringing me cakes. I don't touch them. What if she's trying to poison me? I'll tell the doorman not to let her into the hotel again.
(Translated by Alexandra-Ecaterina Sandu / 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.