After all we've said to each other, after vows and tears, doubts and silences, here we are. Me on one side, you on the other. Like two handles of an amphora. I look at you with the eyes of a stranger, you stare silently at me, with hatred buzzing in your brain, oh, if you could only strangle me, make me come back, wipe away your tears like in the old times, forgive you. A hammer blow wakes us up, the amphora is shattered, I pick myself up off the floor, take one child in my arms and another by the hand and walk out the courthouse gate. So this is how long it lasts. Five years. Love, a trinket.
Oana Brumă
C When her turn came to be born, God ran out of clay. He shaped her out of porcelain and sent her off into the cruel world. You could tell from an early age how frail she was, bursting into tears from any little thing, and the others teased her, lured by the stench of sadness. Constantly rejected, she hid away in an iron case. But the material underneath cracked with each disillusion. She grew up, life got in the way and she forgot to pay attention to the creaks from outside the shiny armour. Until an ordinary day made her fissure and shatter in a thousand pieces.
Arthur Ianoși
I wanted a painting and I entered a sad little room, a placed ignored by the so-called connoisseurs, I saw a table full of all kinds of cups, paintings signed by unknown artists, hanged on the yellowing walls, a lady with thick framed glasses, knitting vigorously, with the chair creaking under her, humming a song I could swear I'd heard when I was a child, I don't know how to say this, I had the sensation I stepped into a not very welcoming universe, but with a strong sense of familiarity. And? I took this little cup.
(Translated by Raluca Sălcianu / 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.