Pedals

Florentina Enache
Come on, ma'am, it's going to be Holy Thursday around here, and it's only Tuesday. It may be a roundabout, but it has rules and priorities. You get in the free lane, put it in first gear, floor it and go. Easy to say. How am I supposed to tell the instructor that everything he's explaining is running in the background and my main screen is showing something else? The only thought in the roundabout is: find the right lane, don't get in people's way and, above all, don't find yourself in the same place you started. Does he know the muscles I've made from all the brakes I've put on myself?
 
 Monica Ciurea
With the silk cape from the costume my mother made for my last kindergarten recital, I flew all summer in front of the block on a Russian bike with training wheels. You're starting school, Dad told me one day, when autumn came - from today, you're grown-up. I took off the cape, he took off the wheels, and I set off weaving S's through the parking lot. Go, go, he shouted, his hand on the saddle. I could have gone far, but I looked back - Dad had grown small - and I crashed straight into the red Lada car between the Dacia cars. Choose something else for your future, he told me then. Imagine.
 
 Florentina Ghițescu
I'm scared, I'll fall. You can't fall if you pedal fast. I'm right behind you. But if I pedal fast, you won't be able to hold me. Don't worry, I'll run behind you. Many years have passed since then and I pedaled so hard I reached distant lands. I see Dad now only at Christmas and Easter. I won't stop pedaling, because I know he'll always be behind me, ready to catch me if I start to fall. That's what I want my child to feel too. Pedal hard, I'm here, right behind you.

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