Pedals

Alina Nedelcu
I found him with his glasses on and a small Phillips screwdriver in his right hand. He was trying to fix my bike, which was flipped upside down in the middle of the garage. I loved my grandfather so much in that moment, with his hands dirty with grease and his knee resting on a Scânteia newspaper from '84. After he finished, he sighed with satisfaction, wiped his hands with a rag soaked in thinner, pushed his cap to the back of his head, and stood in the doorway of the garage: get on the bike, let's see how it goes.
 
 Rozalia Cristea
All the winter holidays had passed. Only the snow that lingered still reminded of the previous hustle and bustle. In the long evenings, the gatherings came to life. Young and old would come together to share stories while the women's hands moved without rest. They sewed, they knitted, but the children were fascinated by the pedals of the loom. Let me, you've already had your turn. No, let me, no, let me, the children's voices echoed. They'd sometimes break threads from the warp, but everything was fixed near the demijohn of wine and the donuts in the big enamel basin.
 
 Mirela A. Nica
I'm pedaling into emptiness, an active emptiness, the kind that's been used to define longing for something that resists all definitions. The first image that comes to mind is imagined. I don't know how that smack landed on my backside. I don't even know how I got so far. Well, not that far, but far enough to understand that in that one slap lay all the lessons a child could use to ride a bike and, generally, to move through life - when you need to turn inability into ability. Thank you, Dad.

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