A new brick, Lord, may it rain, was the prayer we sang when I was little, on hot summer days, at my grandmother's house. God listens to children, and soon enough, the rain would pour down from above in buckets. Such joy, such joy! We'd throw our clothes on the porch and run about through the rain. We jumped like on a trampoline through all the puddles in the yard. Grandma would lovingly scold me: My child, my child, you're standing out in the rain again, and then she'd take me in her warm arms. How small the big vacation feels. An old brick, if only I had what I've lost.
Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
The village madwoman stared out the shack window. It was raining. Torrentially. Beaten, humiliated, rejected, she still felt the absence of people. She looked toward the hill. She remembered. Up on the peak, she had buried her. The torrents would take her. She went outside. She began to climb. Slipping, falling, hurting, she moved forward. She reached the top, fell to her knees, and began to dig. With her hands, with her nails. She was wet, covered in mud, in blood, and searching for something. She stopped. She had forgotten what. She cast her eyes down the valley. The water had hidden the village. She raised her fist to the sky, Why, Lord, who can I turn the other cheek to now?
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
Empty glass, glassy eyes, a flood of murky words, a torrent of hatred spat through clenched teeth, a rain of slaps and punches to the head and stomach. I'll teach you a lesson, you whore, you won't do this to me, not to me. A torrent of tears and muffled sobs, face pressed against the wall, a storm of thoughts as demons laugh and the stars stay silent. A stream of rays flooding the bedroom, a deluge of prayers and pleas for forgiveness, you're my love. I won't do it again, stay with me. Evening descends like a lid over the world. An empty bottle, glassy eyes, I know he's not mine. And it all starts over again.
(Translated by Adina Gabriela Văcărelu / 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.