His chin fell to his chest and his lips smacked with tobacco, I stared at him, he flinched from time to time, as if someone had slapped him in his dream, that is if he was really dreaming or whether the spasms were caused by Vladimir's foul brew made in the back of the cemetery, in that joint where the gravediggers gathered to feel sorry for each other and I couldn't help but wonder how many times he had fallen asleep with a cigarette in his mouth. When the bell rang, he suddenly woke up and stared at me, muttering. I'll dig it tomorrow, priest, there's plenty of time.
Marian Bircea
In a matter of days, all the dogs in people's backyards were poisoned to death. Then bikes or animals went missing. They worked precisely, I think they'd recognise it first, then strike. The sector policeman, a militiaman with an unnaturally swollen belly, shrugged helplessly. The whole neighbourhood was in psychosis. I was alone, I saw the tracks in the garden. A plank stuffed with spikes placed by the fence with the tip upwards brought the blood-curdling howl into the night. In the morning, the policeman handed me the summons for manslaughter.
Cecilia Fofiu
Old Pop is gone, a worthy man, as the neighbours say. His wife, Ana, buried him honourably and paid for an expensive two-seater stone-ware tomb. It annoyed her that the dead man used to come home with the smell of another woman. She forgave him, because that's what a woman does. She mourned him, then took off to her daughter, abroad. Now that it was her time to pass among the righteous, the children brought her home, but there was a great disturbance. The new priest had already filled the parents' grave with a neighbour, Pop Ana, the father's lifelong mistress.
(Translated by Andreea Georgiana Bogdan / 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.