Sanda Vaideș
We met at the Arabic café. I'd ordered you a cappuccino with cream and honey - you always said life on Earth was bitter enough. I held your hand and didn't let go, not even when you pulled out the divorce papers. Between sips of the saddest coffee we ever shared, and a wisp of cigarette smoke, we signed. I wanted to ask what name, what color would your freedom have? But the lump in my throat stopped me. Then you asked, Remember when we walked naked and happy through Paradise?
Ina Moldoveanu
Forget the past. What matters is today. You're always clinging to that love - one that was doomed from the start. Don't you see you're growing old, haunted by the ghost of a dead past? That man mistreated you. Even he got sick of your pleasing him at the first kick. He has a family, kids. But they left him. Now he's in a wheelchair. I take care of him. He's the only man I've ever loved. I knew he'd come back to me. He loves me. He has amnesia. He doesn't know who you are. What matters is that I know and that he needs me.
Ana-Maria Butuza
there was a man named Issai: neither young, nor old; neither handsome, nor ugly; neither tall, nor short; neither fat, nor thin; neither rich, nor poor; neither smart, nor dumb; neither diligent, nor lazy; neither married, nor single. He loved women, and they loved him. One day, he felt the urge to leave neither far, nor near. On the way, he felt neither hunger nor thirst. He sat neither in the sun, nor in the shade, pulled out some polenta, neither firm nor soft, and a water bottle, neither empty nor full. That's all we know.
(Translated by Adela Neacșu / 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.