Once Upon a Time

Marian Bircea
They rejected him without an explanation. You've got gaps in your gaps, they said from their lofty bureaucratic perch. He started over. Tried again. Confident, but no luck. Missing stamps. He got the stamps. Tried again. Your documents expired. Renewed them. Tried again. The file's fine, but we're on vacation. Come back in two months. He came back. Again. And again. But that was long ago. He'd go again, but there's hardly anything left of him. His shoes are worn out.
 
 Sorin Rizeanu
Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house long since swallowed by rot, on a field now buried in asphalt. A stick was a sword, a rock a diamond, a tree a tower. And once, just once, across the road, lived a girl with leaves in her hair and eyes like a deer's. Give me your lips for a kiss, he said one day. She laughed. There was once a boy who fell for a girl. And her laughter became a question he longed to answer, for the rest of his life.
 
 Alex Micu
Three minutes ago, I barely stopped the little one from planting flowers in my shoes. Still, it's 7 a.m. Five minutes ago, my wife brought me coffee. We usually drink it together, laughing at Neti Sandu^[1]. We would've today, too but the little guy insisted on teaching the porcelain fish to fly. Out the window it went. Finally, she sat down. Peace. She'd solved everything. Fast. She emptied the pantry and locked the kids inside. A minute ago. Different times.

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