Sometimes, married life becomes monotonous, dull, lifeless, a real nightmare. For some, but not for me. I know men who reached the brink of suicide from so much nagging. Not me. Just yesterday, a friend of mine was telling me: Hey, Costeluș, I can't stand her anymore, all day long nagging, do this, or because I didn't do something, she's driving me crazy, I swear, I'll kill her. Poor guy. Not my case. My Mila is extraordinary. Intelligent. Loyal. Well-behaved. I'm writing all this because she is the air I breathe. Literally. She's leaning her head on my shoulder.
Titela Durnea
The gong strikes. On the left: politics, strategies, slogans, propaganda. On the right: cars, factories, farms, aircraft, plastic, plastic, plastic. The battle in the ring is fierce. Meanwhile, poachers calmly go about hunting the Panda, Koala, the white elephant, reindeer, and leopard. They are all connected by the same strings of power. And the scent of green bills. The average person finds resources, buys a little house on the outskirts of the city, installs solar panels. Breathes in fresh air. Suffocates, drowned in debt. The gong signals the end.
Nicolae Popescu
I tightly embrace the red oak tree I planted thirty-one years ago. I came here with my class, the park was bare back then. The teacher told us we would breathe good air. Now I see cranes, I smell sand, concrete, it seeps into my every pore. I press my cheek against the bark of the oak tree. I breathe. The sound of the chainsaw grows louder. The trees planted by the fourth-grade children fall, one by one. I hear behind me: I am the senator, we will cut the tree down, this will be a residential neighbourhood. I am the man, you will not cut the Tree.
(Translated by Claudia Garofina Greculeac / 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.