Vicky has just celebrated her 82nd birthday, from which 7 at home, 18 at school, 16 as a wife, 25 as a mistress, 34 as a widow and 6 in a nursing home, where she feels rejuvenated, too rejuvenated. Her daughter receives a call from the director of the administration. Mrs. Matei, there is a delicate matter I need to discuss with you about your mother. No, don't worry, it's not her health, it's her blue heart. Anil, the Nepalese nurse, doesn't want to take care of her anymore, he feels harassed. She touches his ass and calls him Porcelain Booty.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
I am smashed, pieces of me scattered on the ground in the park. A little girl picks me up. Her big eyes look at me. The next second, everything changes. There's cold light, city noise. The little girl is no longer a little girl. She is old, hunched on a bench. She holds in her hand a piece of me, which is turned yellow from the passage of time. She whispers a name she had forgotten. Her tears roll on my cracked face. Then, the time is reversed, my shards rise, float, they are glued back together and the return tears me apart. I'm on the ground again and the child vanishes.
Anca Chimoiu
It's enough for dust to settle on a mirror for everything around you to suddenly look dusty, if to take the time to notice this absolutely insignificant aspect. This thing would have given my mother a mental breakdown, I know for sure. Start cleaning, girl, stop reading and staring in front of the mirror, you're not made of porcelain. And that's how I found out who books were invented for when I was a child. Ever since then, I try not to show off too much. It's a lot of work and I haven't finished yet. I am the pure definition of a porcelain ornament, baby.
(Translated by Irina Vild / 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.