Excuse me, pardon, coming through, please. Old ladies elbow each other, old men are clutch their beanies, they all step aside. A young man with a bowtie, a neat suit and shoes untouched by dust approaches the pit. The priest stops the service, the crying woman with a hat veil turns to him, covers her mouth with her hand. Ștefan, you. Me, Ileana. I told you he liked alcohol and speed. You chose him, you said he had a house and a car, I was a lowly carpenter. May God forgive him, he was my friend. Take care, I am getting married today.
Lucian Pătru
When God was shoeing Himself with horseshoes nails made of cotton wool and salt, on a planet far away some creatures lived in love and harmony. They always helped each other, even dug pits for each other when the need arose. But the removed soil, light as snow, brought misfortune, so tenacious as they were, they started carrying it with space wagons towards a planet with nothing but stale water on it. Then, other creatures started swarming it and they took so much pride in this soil that a pole couldn't reach their nose if they were alive, and if they weren't, then not even a spade.
Alexandra Buhudini
How else may I help you, the monk asked holding a perforated font under his arm. With a pit filled with everything, your holiness. Here or to go? Both. So I left for devil knows where, covered in the baptismal cloth, carrying this deep pit in my navel. In the streetcar, in the mountains, at the grocer's, on the balcony at my grandparents, in the countryside, I wore my pit with dignity. The Seraph smiled as big as a Resurrection and started pulling my umbilical cord with his teeth. At its end stood a pit of sad gods. From among them, only my mother smiled.
(Translated by Andreea Grințescu / 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.