I could see him out of the corner of my eye emptying the trash can and dusting the desk. Then he would go out quietly, with felt footsteps, so as not to disturb me from my job as head of the place. A couple times I thought about asking his name and thanking him, but for some reason I never did. When I noticed the dust on my desk and the basket full of papers, I got hysterical: where is that dizzy idiot, what was his name? Aurel? He died last week, ma'am. Heart attack. I got so angry and I wrote him up as absent without leave.
Adina Colțea
People say women know what they want. Anuța didn't know if she knew what she wanted, she's never asked for any of the things life gave her. She only knew she had to take them as they came. And she set out bravely on every path. But she also knew what she dared not want. Secretly, she yearned, for she didn't believe that what she wanted existed. She would only talk about it with Joiana, when she milked her in the evening, and then she would sit on the porch, holding her soul in her lap, sighing at the stars and feeling a longing she couldn't put into words.
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
We embraced each other, we sat right at the front, the guitar was wailing, we waved our hair around, we had a beer, we were all one voice and one body, Mihai lifted me on his shoulders, I thought about writing you that I would be a while, but then the fireworks went off, we watched with wide eyes, up they went, flickered for a second, fizzled out. Next thing we know, we were choking on thick smoke, tar started raining from the sky, and bodies piled up at the entrance, I went up and passed. Don't cry, mom, I'll come see you again. The sixty-three are waiting for me.
(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.