Agnosia

Aurelian Țolescu
Exactly 40 days after my father's death, when I went to take my mother to the cemetery, I found her sitting in an armchair, her gaze fixed. It was a horrible day, spent between the hospital, the cemetery, and the memorial. For two days, she was unconscious and kept trying to get out of bed and walk, always falling and hurting herself. She was immobilized. A few days later, when I went to see her, I fed her, and she told me: Tell your father to stop with this nonsense, with leaving the house. He should come back, nothing will happen to him. There's food in the fridge.
 
 Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
I parked as usual, near the café with the red umbrellas. I got out, closed the door, and started walking toward the city center. But the sidewalk seemed narrower, the façades older. A shiver ran down my spine. The gazes of strangers suffocated me. When I saw the fountain in the middle, the sculptures, I began to choke. I blinked, trying to anchor myself. I was no longer home. My first thought was that I was in Rome, but how could that be possible? I couldn't make sense of it. Around me, the world continued, indifferent. I wanted to run, but I didn't know where.
 
 Ramona Ungureanu
It was a beautiful, sunny day. We sat in a circle on the soft grass, the five of us-band and full orchestra. They let us outside; we were calm, had taken our meds. One gently placed his non-existent violin on his shoulder. Two brushed blades of grass off his double bass. Three lifted their drumsticks, whittled from hazel branches. I drifted, dizzy, toward the piano nestled among neurons clasping hands like a spider's web. I sat on the tiny stool. I was tired. C major rose skyward, then dropped with a hollow thud. Play without me, I said. I'm out of tune today.

 
(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)