If You're Reading This, You Have Been Chosen

Nicolae Popescu
Robinson takes the ticket out of the bottle. He reads, looks around, no waves. Friday digs the garden and waters the rice. The grapevine is ready to bear fruit. The dog Tommy barks towards the open sea, at a ghost ship. The two goats in the bamboo pen look at him kindly. He looks at his beard, he hasn't cut it in 17 years. He should do it now, but the vine shears are broken. No, he can't go to Lilly on the neighboring island like this. That's it, he will put wine in the bottle for the winter. He will drink it with Friday, with Tommy, and they will look at the ocean.
 
 Paul Dârvariu
I've put all 23 of the ones you slipped under my door in this big envelope. You'll take them tomorrow, when you bring the 24th. All the envelopes, except the first one, remained unopened. Only yesterday, reading them, did I connect the blond guy who gave me his seat on the tram, the courier who untangled my skirt caught in the bike chain, and the rose taped with scotch on each pizza box. You seem like a good guy, but stay in your world. You'd be The Chosen One only if your name were Brad, Keanu, or Johnny.
 
 Tibor Szente
On the beach, the waves wash sand, shells, traces of algae clinging to my feet. A bottle floats adrift, close to the shore. I pick it up, old, worn, with a barely visible message crammed inside. Curious, I try to break it. A strange feeling comes over me, a kind of childlike excitement finding the first blackberry hidden among the leaves. The yellow paper, with a barely visible scribble on the inside of the roll. I can't make out the letters, they seem to be in an old, forgotten language. I study it at home, first I see the sunrise.

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