Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
I loved him from the very first moment. With almond-shaped eyes, the figure of a small Asian, he was my wonder. And my pain. In kindergarten, they didn't play with him because he was ugly, dwarfish and stupid. And he understood. Everything. At school, he cried when they locked him in the closet. After that, I stopped reading his thoughts. One night, he had a nightmare. Then he whispered to me, mom, I'm tired of being normal for you. I would like to have a world of my own. A city. Where we can all be the same. I hugged him tight. Really tight. The next day, I took him to his people. The ones with Down syndrome.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
It was raining heavily. Nick lit a cigarette, feeling the harsh smoke in his chest. The dagger dissapeared again, and its last owner had been found hanged. In "The Black Lotus," the smoke from smuggled cigarettes hung heavy and smelled like dried blood. Nick, you're too late, it was heard in the darkness. A cold blade touched his skin. The fox growled with its lips close to his ear. You've found your target. Too bad you never aked yourself who was hunting whom. The shadows danced on the walls, twisted by the flickering light of the dirty bulb.
Ana-Maria Butuza
The narrow, crowded streets, glowing red, had tired him. He entered in a pub. The air smelled like cinnamon and osmanthus flowers. Mei Lin, a small girl with deep eyes, greeted him, offering him, according to the Gong Fu Cha tradition, a cup of tea. Their hands met and, between their fingers, time seemed to stop for a moment. The young man looked at her curiously, and the girl blushed slightly, and in an awkward gesture, stumbled against his feet. He could have caught her, but what was the point? He didn't like tea.
(Translated by Eliza Radu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.