His wife, a conformist; what a bore. Her husband, an old-school guy. But they were soulmates, rebels at heart; sort of married, but who cares. On a napkin she wrote a note to him, saying: at the bar. She waited for her husband to go to the loo and for the wifey to go and gossip with her girlfriends so she took the chance and touched his ankle with the tip of her shoe. Perfect. At the bar, she winked at him, `come on, then`. With a gasp and a clang, they pulled the door of the car open and hat to cry out, alas: a conformist and an old-school guy were kissing like rabbits in there.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
I step into the studio feeling the cold wood of the floor beneath my feet. Plie. Tendu. I stretch out my arms like tired wings and my body vaguely remembers something. The pirouette begins, time stops and everything expands into a deep silence. Relevé, I lift my toe and I'm spinning as on a fragile axle. I keep my balance but my ankle trembles. My goodness, it's not the time. Spotting. I'm staring at a spot and the air seems to stop together with me. It's done. I didn't fall. I look in the mirror, I`m still alive.
Mihaela Scânteie
He was feeling listless. All books were the same, no type of writing could wake him up. Movies chewed his brain in an endless film where the Lumière brothers were constantly cranking. Podcasts filled him up with information. The food, the alcohol, the cigarettes and sex were all things that happened to his body. Music in the background. Life had been like that for years. One day he turned his head at a stoplight. He saw her on a bicycle. Smiling and glowing, she was wearing fingerless gloves. He started to feel it again. He got off and ran after her.
(Translated by Florina Georgiana Țîncu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan / Edited by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.