Once Upon a Time

Sonia Ungureanu
...there was a sledding hill that took you from the slope's peak down to our gate if you had polished your sled's blades well, and an old woman who threw ash on it. And an army of snotty, revolted kids who called her hag in a rag, a famous nickname from our games. There was also a fleece duvet from under which you didn't feel like peeking your toes before the heating stove hadn't gotten hot enough, and a window from which a pleasant-smelling pelargonium gazed up to the sky and through which the two eyes of a child were counting the icicles dangling from the eaves. It was all like a fairy tale. They paved it all with asphalt.
 
 Angelica Miara
If anywhere in the world, shadows behaved normally, extending in the morning, shortening at noon, and disappearing in the shadow of the night, something strange was happening in the village. The shadows behaved however they liked. I was skipping the rope, my shadow was reading. Dad was cutting wood; his shadow was having tea. Mum was drying clothes; her shadow was kneading the dough for bread. My brother maintained that his best friend was his shadow and would talk to it. And, stranger still, the shadows remembered what people had forgotten. After some time, everyone chased their shadows, not knowing if they were the sole masters of their own destinies.
 
 Eduard Baranovski
The nurse's smile shines brighter than her white overall. They obediently line up; it is time for the treatment. All have supernatural powers, which is why they are guests at ward 22. Andrei can read minds, George can see into the future, Marius can defeat an ox with a single punch, Claudiu can levitate and fly above the clouds, Marian can turn invisible whenever he wants to. Toma, you're up, here are your pills. I am Toma. My power? I have created them all; I am the storyteller.

 
(Translated by Francisc Csiki / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)