The White Hell

Ligia Dumitrescu
One day, His Darkness woke up in a good mood. He inspected Hell and didn't like what he saw. He concluded that a total renovation was in order. The cauldrons were soot-caked, the walls had long since succumbed to the onslaught of smoke, and the floors. The floors creaked under the thick layer of ash. This can't go on, he told himself. He called the maintenance crew and ordered them: Squeaky clean. Make sure there's not a speck of grime left. Finally paint everything white. Make it pretty. I wanna rub it into Heaven's face.
 
 Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
Why did you tie her to the bed? In this empty, pale room. She's rigid. Scared. That's why she screamed. That you were taking her away from me. He beat her for not giving him a boy, slammed her head against the wall, kicked her in the belly till she pissed herself, burned her with a cigarette, smelled like a barbecue, and you're surprised she started drinking? The others are bad. She takes care of me. She washes me, I clean up her puke, she stomps me, I pick her up, she makes me food, I make her her herbal tea against the disgust in her. Leave her at home, mom can't manage without me.
 
 Adriana Patroi Miu
She gathered between her eyelids all the forgotten stories, hidden after years, all the unfulfilled dreams and half joys. She saw the beloved faces that had been lost in the mists of bygone times. The pains turned into butterflies and the fears, oh, those fears that never let her live fully. She shattered them all between her eyelids with the power of a peacemaker. 'This avalanche is burying us,' someone howled, but she could feel it gently peeling away and soaring beyond imagination.

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