The last Newspaper

Laura Stanciu
In 2045, my grandfather, who was a typesetter, kept the last newspaper ever printed and placed it in a safety box. It is now more precious than the first edition of Carolus, published in Strasbourg in 1605. My grandchildren will store their last tablet, and in a few hundred years, future generations will laugh at the few means of information we used. Perhaps only a nostalgic person will smile if they read in the obituaries section of the last issue: All The News carried the weight of the news for 29 years.

Monica Ciurea
He finished reading the column titled Nothing New Under the Sun and remained with his eyes on the newspaper, forgetting to breathe. He hadn't learned about melancholia in college, nor had he encountered anything like it in an autopsy. He lowered his palm along his sternum, tracing the slope of the last rib to the left. He exhaled the rest of the air in one breath and dug the tips of his fingers under the ribs. He touched carefully to feel the shape, the pulse. Suddenly, he opened his eyes. He felt it. It was just an organ, a receptacle of death. Myriads of melancholic particles scattered throughout his body.
 
 Caterina Tudorache
What do you mean by the last one, man? The last one. I get it, the mayor's. Sad. Cars don't forgive. What can I say about the pharmacist's? Sad, man, you're fine, you wake up healthy, and then, bam! Never mind, that pharmacist too... I won't say more. He treats everything that comes his way. He laughed with hiccups. Yeah. And after those, I say, well, mine too. Because I'm not just anybody. People come from over the hill to drink with me. And then, well, the last one. The last one at the newspaper. My Fifiluț. How he knew how to bark and how affectionate he was. Listen, wife, when this little one dies, I'll give anything. Just for him to be the first.

(Translated by Laura-Monica Doroiman / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)