On the hall, I play with my friends. Echo of stumbled footsteps on the stairs. I can hear the brutal voice of a drunk, clamouring at every floor. The children look at me questioningly. I stand up. I tell them to save the game until tomorrow. I run to my apartment. From the doorway, I look at the shadow with an apron coming out of the kitchen. My mother's face shows a mixture of worry and resignation. Her eyes are glimmering behind the bruises. Go to your room, she suggests with a nod of her head: I listen to her. With my head under my pillow, I hope not to hear the door slammed by the wall.
Arthur Ianoși
Amid crosses loaded with all the years lived and unlived. Amid graves covered by ice flowers. Amid alleys where sadness screams Mummy, I want to go home. Behind a chapel where jokes about those who leave us are being said. Next to a bench where a pregnant woman is caressing her belly while looking at a black and white picture, that was turned yellow over time. Under the nut tree where I stand propped on the shovel while I roll a cigarette. Behind the scarf which she gave me as a present. Yes, people dig in January too, death takes no vacation. Nor do the gravediggers.
Iulia Stavre
Winner's attitude, expensive clothes, fancy car, impeccable haircut, unique handbag and stiletto shoes, all these things define me. I am a successful woman, businesswoman, role mother and wife. During the night, demons and fears take me to fearful realms, in the labyrinth of thoughts, they scold me, about the fact that I can do better, that my husband has left for the weekend with a mistress not in a teambuilding, that everything is my fault, that I offer myself too easily to people, dandelion scattered in the wind. At the morning coffee, the sunglasses are hiding my tears.
(Translated by Diana Sitaru / 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.