I'm a disappointment to my father (he always believed in me like an atheist believes in God). Being the first male in a family with a long tradition of eradicating grapes and turning them into alcoholic drinks (downed them with the jug of clay), who doesn't tolerate alcohol at all. I was even cast out from his wine cellars (far away, over many hills and valleys) into the pond of abstinence, where I'm supposed to serve my sentence (a journey to the land of the plum's tail). There, I stumbled upon some cannibals sipping from the 550 (at least) swamp.
Aurelian Țolescu
Back when, in a provincial town, a new apartment block was being built every week, our playground, a vacant lot, had filled with large holes for foundations, partially filled by the summer rains. My cousin and I dreamed about the adventures in the book Cireșarii, so we built a raft from three wooden planks. We climbed into one of those foundations and placed it on the water. We got on and floated for about five seconds, only to find ourselves sinking into the swampy foundation up to our necks. At home, my aunt and uncle quickly ended our fantasies and punished us with math problems.
Ana Ludușan
His heart pounds in his chest. Death grips his throat. From the swamp of life, all the ogres have emerged. First, when they took his mother with the ambulance, when his father was mobilized for war, when ogres stripped their life of all its savings, when he spoke to his friends about the freedom in books and was arrested, when they put the tanks on them because they couldn't stand the cold and hunger anymore, when the ogres looted everything they could-now they threaten him with a sovereigntist miracle. Who even believes in miracles anymore? He woke up - he is going to vote.
(Translated by Larisa Marta Mreană / 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.