I don't really understand why I am here. The trees cast long shadows over the mounds. It smells like cold and wax. Paper ribbons flutter here and there. A red circle is hanged from a plinth. I place my hand on my stomach and caress the sole which looks as if it wants to penetrate my skin. Yes, baby, we'll be out right away, as soon as we find the way, I thought. My gaze rests on a cross chipped at the top, leaning over a fresh grave. There is no name on the cross. Only numbers. A birth date and a death date. I walk away. I can't take my eyes off it. My birth date.
Titela Durnea
Well, Ioan, I already told you so many times to mind your own business, didn't I? These eyes which God bestowed me under my forehead can bear many things. That you led my cattle to the nearby village, and I had to spend a lot of time marking numbers on them. And that you gossiped me in the market, that I might had taken money out of the poor's box. But I won't forgive you for making a move on my dear Maria who's not even 15 years old, you big jerk, I won't forgive that, Ioan. Now, see this shovel? You'll realise your skull cracked when you fell in the grave.
Vero Antthei Teodoru
They ordered double, plus two bottles of plum brandy. A glittering white blanket had fallen over the village. They emptied the first bottle then they started to scrape the frozen ground. It was difficult. Their noses were turning violet and the steamy swirls of their breath rose to the sky. They no longer felt the cold, only the harshness of the ground which was hard as a rock. They glanced at the crosses lined up in the snow. It's still better to die in spring, to have violets growing on your belly button. Tomorrow they'll have their tears frozen. Let's stay a little bit more and then we'll go.
(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.