Cecilia Fofiu
She studies the pink patch on her elbow, new skin ringed by a black crust. She scratches it, clenches her jaw, and tugs. Not healed. She winces as the blood oozes out. It'll heal before you get married, Grandma always says. She grabs a rock and shoos the rooster off the fence before it pecks her again, jealous of her chasing his hens. She bursts into the empty house, freezes. Tiptoes to the shelf, grabs a glass and bolts outside. With a hammer from the toolbox, she smashes the hideous thing giving her nightmares: Grandpa's dentures
Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
We're face to face on the steps, caught between giggles and tears. I'm wearing the sun-yellow dress. I rise on tiptoes, and you cup my cheeks. To Cluj, you whisper. I smile. Come fall, the city welcomes us: footsteps in lecture halls, kisses on the Citadel, nights in underground bars, our tiny home, your arms my nest. The screen blinks. Thanks for the invite. I can't make it. I'm not going either. What for? To see ghosts from twenty years ago? I can still see you, under my eyelids, on those school steps - where I left you.
Yuka Brevi
What's done is done. Time can't rewind and I wouldn't want it to. Life changed me. I used to love rolling in the snow till my hands and feet went numb. Now I hate the cold. No matter how warm I dress, it makes me feel exposed. I imagine myself a pile of bones under a blanket with the smell of usuc[1]. Cold and hollow. But I love fire, how it crackles madly in the stove. And my XXL thermal long johns. Whoever invented them? Absolute legend. Gets all my gold stars left over from the Shōgun days.
(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.