We're in 2025 - it's no secret anymore that it wasn't God who made man, but clothing. The irony is that we're born naked, but even more ironic is that if I dressed a monkey in a suit, it would still be more successful than you would be. You're so dumb that your brain works overtime just to help you blink. You're like a giant baby, abandoned in a parking lot, whose pubic hair grew out until his family finally remembered him. Stop staring like a deer in headlights, Costeluș - put something on, your mother's coming to visit.
Siranuș Hakobian
The tram was coming, and I took off running toward the station through the twilight. That's why I didn't see the curb. Then, there was nothing - an intense nothingness, devoid of both light and darkness, dissolved by the appearance of greenish stars, which slowly faded, giving way to a small horizon that I could see with only one eye. A tuft of grass had stubbornly pushed through the cracks in the concrete slabs, a dandelion trembled its pale coin-like head, and some ants, drawn by the picturesque scene, wobbled their antennae and - I swear - laughed out loud.
David Brescan
A guesthouse on the Danube's shore. The Delta in front, stretching left and right, with a forest behind. Small boats pulled onto the bank, ducks and pelicans gliding over the water, lush vegetation, and a bright blue sky - just like in the ads. The food is good, natural, eco, bio, or whatever they call it these days - not frozen, injected, or coated with who-knows-what powders like in the supermarket. You know, real food, straight from the farm. I head down to the kitchen and catch a snippet of conversation between the cook and the host. What am I supposed to make the fish soup with now? Carp. That's all I could find at Lidl.
(Translated by Cristina Ioana Bontea / 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.