I came to my senses in the belly of the sky, with a single transparent eye, with a mustache that spun wildly, with a brightly colored tail. My wings stretched towards the clear horizons, were the promise of freedom for the spirit, for thought. Behind my eye, a well-built pilot, beautiful as a celebration, promised me that we would prevail. Will we? From my belly, death was detaching and throwing itself over the world in the form of projectiles. To hell with me. In the evening, my boy would come to the hangar, caress my muzzle, smiling: We will prevail.
Florina Hegedüs
I feel myself scattering, like when you open the bathroom door and the steam rushes out. My heart beats so loudly that it feels like a scream in my ears. I'm boiling with fever. Sky, forest, the car crushed next to an old guardrail, all fit into one eye. I emit the smell of dirty dishwater and burnt hair. On the road between the inside and the outside, I am lighter but with two minds. The ambulance has arrived. My pulse is gone. Up. On the branch of a maple, I stir the air and shout that I am. A doctor observes that it's divine that, in all this sorrow, a song can still be heard.
Răzvan Dițescu
I woke up suspended between heaven and earth, with hollow bones and skin covered in blue feathers. Trying to speak, only a fragile trill came out of my throat. All I remember is a failed flight, probably from a past life. Back then, I tried to rise above my own fears, but I failed. Now, I look at the world from above: blocks crowded like cages and hurried people. Maybe I was one of them; maybe I loved and lost, but nothing matters now. Between heaven and earth, I discovered freedom.
(Translated by Iulia-Mihaela Țugulea / 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.