One day, she forgot her shadow on the chair. She got up and left without it. I saw it remain there, uncertain, vaguely outlined in the diffused light. I tried to pretend not to notice it, but shadows don't care about your feelings, they claim their place in the world with a peculiar, oppressive silence. Then others began to go missing: at first, emotions, memories, little things, until the whole room emptied, and all I had left was the echo of my own footsteps on the invisible floor. I wanted to scream, but found that my voice was gone too.
Aurelian Țolescu
I saw her everyday. We would sit together for an hour at most and reminisce with a mix of nostalgia and heartache. I regretted that I couldn't spend more time with her, but time never stopped chasing me, day and night. I could barely manage to steal moments for both of us, hoping that in time things would get better. On Christmas Day we spent several hours together, but even then I was pressed by obligations. I only missed one day, at lunch. When I arrived at the clinic, my mother was waiting for me in the armchair, but her pulse was absent.
Ramona Ungureanu
At first, after she passed, I wore my grief like a shawl on my shoulders to hold me together, then I felt it was heavy and it held me bent so that I could see nothing but the ground and then my friends called out to me that it was summer and I somehow stood up straight again, the shawl slipped off gently, I was like a snake shedding its skin and I felt light and alive. Oh, and then? Then I bumped into you, the white veil had fallen out of your hair when you were running, you said you didn't need it anymore because you couldn't see a thing, then here I am, I came to ask you for a little sugar.
(Translated by Adela Neacșu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.