Her first performance. A period play, Florence, 19th century. Clara sat on the armchair under the arbor, as the director had instructed her. She narrowly avoided knocking over the decanter at the last moment. She had foreseen that her foot would slip in the velvet shoes. But the costume designer had firmly refused to adjust them without an order from the director. This would be the role of her life. She could hardly wait to meet her stage partner. The director came to call her to the ticket booth. He couldn't bring himself to shatter the girl's dream. Besides, the role seemed to suit her.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
I have fallen. I feel my body lying motionless on the floor, but I am here, above, watching everything in horror. My heart has stopped, but my thoughts rush to them, my family. I see my daughter, far away, in another country. She will have to fly to me when she finds out. I pray that she hears my thoughts, that she knows I still live through her, through the laughter of her child, untamed and free, just as I once was. I reach out a hand toward myself, but all I touch is air. I want to cry at the thought of them, but my tears remain in my body, growing colder by the second.
Răzvan Drăgoi
In an imaginary language, I wrote about a love story that never happened. Because no one had written it. Time and place had not conceived it. Which means it had happened neither sometime nor somewhere. And yet, all the other ingredients, him, her, and their feelings were there. It was like chaos, everything existed, but no one had written the order and the names of things. I had to create a language to write the story. I cannot read it without becoming someone else. And when I wrote it, I was someone else. Perhaps I am only a word.
(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.