Ikigai

Dan Banu
Tetsu had been a cashier her entire life. The clinking of the register after she rang up the prices and pressed for the total drove her wild. Diiing. However sad she was, whenever she heard diiing, she lit up like the darkness locked inside the chamber to the lantern. Mrs. Saito, that will be 6200 yens and a nice day to you. Diiing. Mr Abe, your total is 4700 yens and may your moment be serene. Diiing. When the woman with the gloomy gaze came in asking for some candles and some soul instead of change, she pressed total and smiled. Diiing.
 
 Ana-Maria Butuza
She was so beautiful, I knew I had to paint her. There weren't enough colours to capture the light about her. My brush strokes, however delicate, still felt unfinished. I tried again until, staring at my work, she told me: you see me more beautiful than I know myself to be and she started to sing. Do you recognize this song? She laughed and twirled around, with the painting in her arms, like a child who had just found the meaning of life. Since then, I look at the painting with different views every time, like I'd be seeing her for the first time. It never looks the same to me.
 
 Sorin Rizeanu
Bob crawled through life like you'd crawl through a bar after the fifth bad beer. His job only confirmed his suspicions - that he was about as useful as a cigarette butt stubbed out in beer. Worn-out parents, a dull school with uninterested teachers, and now a shitty salary for a job even a dead man could do. But most of all he hated the trainers and their bloody standard forms. He smilingly looked at the phoney woman in the crisp white shirt. What do you love? Nothing. What are you good at? Nothing. What does everybody want from you? For me to disappear.

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