A couple of months after my misfortune, I receive a call from a friend. Honey, I never called, I had no idea what to say, I was shocked. Why don't we go out for a coffee? I accept. We blow two air-kisses, we sit down and she starts: How are you? I'm about to answer and she interrupts me: Don't say anything, I know, I'd rather tell you some terrible things. With acoustic musical improvisations, she details about her mother-in-law, mascara, her boss, some boots and the dentist. I look at her calmly, trying to seem interested. She ends abruptly: Ah, it's so late, I have to go, I'll call you back. Oh, I almost forgot, I'm sorry for your loss, darling.
Laura Stanciu
Love has no age, that's what my father told me when he married for the fifth time. Now that I'm past 70 and I've had four marriages, I agree with him. Whenever Mi-Re-La appears in my mind, I hear the violins, the nightingales, and Solomon's Song of Songs. I think she's wrong to say YES at twenty. She's not in love. No music of the spheres drips into her eardrums when we're together, just my snoring or the way I shuffle my slippers. On the other hand, no couple is perfect. For now we're improvising, just like in jazz.
Adina Drag
He resembled the figure and eroticism of Coleman Hawkins. When he came off the stage and whispered Jézabel in my ear, I almost wished to be a slave on his cotton plantation. Well, his studio apartment. It didn't even matter that he called me by a different name or that he didn't have a good view of me. I was determined to mix our colours and be his trombone for a couple of days. Well, saxophone. Let him play me till he makes my cherry pop. That didn't take long. When I came back from the restroom with my makeup done, he was already asleep with his head on the table.
(Translated by Oana-Elena Dragnea / 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.