I'm panting. All my life, I've been dragging this bottomless sack behind me. I filled it with all my thoughts, worries, and wishes. It never fills up-only the burden grows heavier. It all ends today. This is the last stop before the precipice. One leap, and it's over. I watch another old man dragging his own sack. He reaches the edge of the chasm. I wait for him to jump so I can follow. Surprise: he empties his sack into the abyss. Then he walks away like a little boy-lighter, freer, younger. He notices me and winks knowingly.
George Dometi
Hope is a whale That swims in the spare change received by a daughter and a mother Who are playing the accordion in front of the bench Where I sit. I have a bag Which is stuffed with small, jute-woven objects, rich in banknotes. A blonde lady, draped in fox fur, Who passes arrogantly, is fixing her phone screen with her eyes. The little girl greets her, hope shining in her tiny eyes. The mother stares at the heels clicking in poverty's clang, but the woman, Who doesn't even bat an eye, walks on, impassive. I stand up. I give. I leave.
Arthur Ianoși
Alec, you know this Christmas Eve therapy session will cost you double, right? Costel, I'm going to be alone on Christmas night, and you feel like cracking jokes? Fine, fine, I'll introduce you to my cousin. She's not ugly. Imagine a Christmas fairy but drawn with your left hand. That's what I thought. You don't care, Costel. Yesterday, I had the twins over to decorate the tree. I also gave them their gifts-a whole sack full. They're still not happy. When I was little, we were so poor that on Christmas Eve, my dad would lock all the doors in the house-just so I'd have something to open the next day.
(Translated by Andreea-Nicoleta Ban / 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.