Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
They were shopping in the same place. She slipped in the snow with everything spilling around her. And the glasses hanging crooked on her nose. He picked her up, fixed her lenses, and helped her gather the packages. Each saw the other's wedding ring. And they left. The next day, each one looked for the other. The third day, they we're telling themselves they were happy. The fourth day they bumped into each other. Every time they quickly withdrew back to their lives. The thousandth time they found themselves in a hotel room. They embraced and she whispered, I know we're in a hurry, but please, undress me slowly.
Iulia Biro
This time, she had prepared in advance. 10 p.m. had not caught her with only a checklist and pouring the shampoo and the conditioner into travel containers. She had also no longer felt the mind-numbing anxiety of 1 a.m., when she still didn't have her luggage packed, the plane was departing at 6 a.m. and she'd be on the road all day. She arrived at the airport and wanted to check in her luggage. You haven't read your emails, have you? they asked her. The departure time had been changed, it was at 5:30 a.m. We still have a ticket for tonight's plane, would you like one? She couldn't answer, she was crying with laughter.
Dorin Vasile
She used to refuse the flowers on the 8th of March, cheap presents and men in a hurry. She corrected them as she corrected our declension mistakes in Latin: with no mercy, with no regrets. The years passed too quickly. I saw her again by chance. Time is patient, she told me. Why shouldn't I be the same? I knew she was talking about him, about the one she was waiting for without hurry, without despair. I realized that some lives are not love stories, but waiting stories. No resignation, but silent victory. Or a silence that no one interrupts anymore.
(Translated by Diana Sitaru / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.