Agnosia

Ana-Maria Butuza
The room brimmed with gifts, balloons, and confetti. Yet Jacob gazed absently at those around him, unmoved by his mother's voice or his father's hug. A flicker of yellow-a darting, restless stain-caught his eye, but he remained silent in his grandmother's arms as she pressed a piece of cake into his mouth. Do you like it? she cooed, stroking his cheek and kissing him, but he said nothing, his eyes still fixed on that fidgeting yellow blur. Come now, open your presents, urged his mother. Jacob rose, walked toward the cage, unlatched it, seized the canary in his fist-and bit off its head.
 
 Răzvan Dițescu
My reflection blinks a second later. My heart lurches into chaos. I take a step back. My breath comes in shallow gasps, and a cold sweat breaks across my skin. The room is unchanged, yet something is unmistakably wrong. A disquieting blend of the known and the unfamiliar clings to every object, as though everything has been subtly, deliberately displaced. I see, but I cannot make sense of what I see. My phone vibrates. A new message. I read it, but the words slip past comprehension. I lift my gaze. The mirror has darkened. From within it, a shadow stares back at me. The other me smiles. I freeze. And I wait. It is all I can do.
 
 Angelica Miara
Mari ran barefoot over the hills, her goats grazing in tow. One day, the sky shattered above her, and with a single misstep, a hidden chasm in the earth swallowed her fragile body whole. She opened her eyes-but her mother, her brothers, even the goats, were strangers now. Nothing was familiar. A crone whispered that death must be deceived. Let the priest give her new breath, under a new name. Mari died, and in her place, Kati was born. Years later, on her tombstone, it is still Kati that is etched. No one knows if Mari was truly saved-or simply forgotten, forever.

 
(Translated by Ioana Andreea Radu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)