This is how it goes, I come home tired from work, my wife gets upset because I don't hold her in my arms. She wants cuddles, she wants things. I'm tired, I tell her. That's all. Just try to understand. She calls me a monster. Then the kids come, climbing all over me. Come play, Daddy! Let's watch a movie, Daddy! Let me catch my breath, I'm human too. And right at that moment, I swipe across my phone screen and get asked if I'm a robot. What the hell am I supposed to answer? I'm a bird, sir. A bird. At least for a moment, just let me fly.
Gabriel Rusu
I never wanted to be a suicide, but it was the only way. Honestly, the city weighed heavily on my chest, and I was overcome with fits of rage when I couldn't see the horizon because of the mountains of glass. One evening, as my soul wandered through Minato Mirai, I found the answers. Where does it say it's dishonorable to leave before your boss? Nowhere. Who can stop a leap from Landmark Tower? No one. Fly, Kenji, freedom means happiness.
With my arms outstretched, I whispered farewell to Yokohama.
Monica Ciurea
I had a strange dream, I was a bird, gliding effortlessly through an ovoid universe. Everywhere, there were no limits, no rush, nowhere to be. Only on Earth, I knew, there was flatness. It wouldn't be right to descend, to be a soul trapped in a cage of bones, marching within the same borders, to keep my heart, a lantern, locked inside my chest, feeling it flicker like a faulty neon light. I felt the lightness of a bird that understands the way humans walk when, suddenly, the universe whispered to me: How do you know you're not the bird dreaming it's a man?
(Translated by Claudia Garofina Greculeac / 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.