What tead[1] you put in your bag, stupid? What tead you lose? What tead you win? What tead you do with the tea from yo mama? Here, Ion stopped and thought. Something was puzzling him. Not about his life, because everything in it was already upside down. He read it again, he smoked a cigarette watching himself in the mirror as he puffed smoke rings with his mouth, then he returned to the notebook and added: What tead you think? What tead you want with that girl? What tead you think would happen? It was settled, not even the diary understood him today. Besides, a question wouldn't leave him alone: yo mama has a hyphen or not[2]?
[1] (pronounced and used like "did") - A play on words using the keyword "tea" after an intended but incoherent substitution of "ce-ai facut" (Romanian for "what did you do") with the Romanian "ceai facut" (English "tea you do"). It plays on linguistic confusion, where "tea" was intentionally substituted, creating an incoherent but poetic effect.
[2] In Romanian: Mă-ta are cratimă reffers to the fact that the word mă-ta is frequently written incorrect: măta, without a hyphen. Hence the expression Mă-ta are cratimă (Your mom has a hyphen).
Dana Popescu
With unsteady fingers, he put the tea cup on the polka-dotted saucer he'd bought her from the boutique they had seen one another for the first time. The shuffling of his slippers woke her up every morning and today, just like on any other day, he prayed that she wouldn't start with her questions again. Full of hope, he glanced at the one who was both his love and his lifelong sentence, searching in those beloved features a glimpse of recognition. Hey, did you bring me my tea, who are you? He picked up the yellow tinted photograph and sat down to tell their story, from another time. This tea is so good, who are you?
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
From the first sprout of grass and until the frost set in, I wandered the fields and forests with him. He had a satchel where he kept the treasures he found. Aromatic thyme is good for cough. Verbascum helps the liver. St. John's wort heals the stomach. Oak bark soothes the intestines. Linden blossoms bring a peaceful sleep. Yarrow and shepherd's purse are good for your mother, when she gets her aches. And sea buckthorn keeps the colds away. And this longing in my soul, grandpa? How do you heal that? I'd call out to him now, but I know that there's no cure.
(Translated by Diana Gabriela Radu / 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.