We Who Stand on the Front Line

Dana Popescu
Last night, I dreamt once again that I was preparing for the mathematical Olympiad. Lots of exercises, sleepless nights, happiness for the silver medal, sadness that I didn't make it to the national team. My teacher hugs me, tears in her eyes, our headmaster congratulates me at the award ceremony, our mayor hands me a prize with which I buy myself two exercise books and a pen. Since yesterday, I've been obsessively asking myself once again, what good all the math did me, and the answer came through Doru, my former high school classmate and seat neighbour. He hasn't forgotten how I helped him pass the exams, so he hired me. I drive his BMW. 
 
 Iulia Biro
He went to see that film because Emil, Mihnea's friend and roommate, insisted. The cinema operated in a small space, with few seats. He had been surprised that they had managed to get tickets. He was paying attention to the screen, but Emil pointed at a couple, a boy and a girl a couple of rows before them, that were kissing and groping each other: isn't that your girlfriend? Follow me, forward, Nicolaescu was saying in the film, when Mihnea pounced upon the kissers, screaming that he would murder them. By the time the lights came on and the others separated them, he had gotten two punches in, and received a punch in his turn. 
 
 Teodora Ștefănescu
One summer we were passing by Mărășești. We weren't thinking of visiting the Mausoleum. Spooky. But we stopped in the village for a coffee. All were eager to brag about what made them famous. Tales of ghosts in the fields, nights on which cannons could be heard, the moans of the dying. An old lady said it short and simple: nonsense. Ma'am, when they run the tractor, they will pull out human bones. Romanians, Germans, all dead. When the container fills up, the priest holds a funeral and we make seven koliva so that the seven sins will be forgiven. 

 
(Translated by Alina-Alexandra Șovar / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)