Fil

The Huck

Nowhere does the devil, with all its litter and creatures, hide better than in the waters. The devil of the marshes, everybody knows, mingles with people and is the most delusive of them all. It takes various shapes: from the small light flickering in the darkness of the

Mînjoală's Inn

A quarter of an hour to Mînjoală's Inn. . . from there, to Popeştii‑de‑sus, a post mile: at an average ambling pace, an hour and a half. . . The horse is good. . . if I feed it at the inn and let it rest for three quarters of an hour. . . it keeps going.

The Couch Grass

Even if this was a long time ago, two of the phrases that remind me of her really bring her back to my mind. When her yard was filled with Gypsies, and – everybody knows this – such a thing happens often enough, because this is the way they go, in gangs, she would chase

The Pillow

Costache is a clerk of consequence, only a few years away from retirement. He visits his daughters from his first marriage rather infrequently, and secretly, too. They did object to his remarriage, but then neither was his second wife too keen on his damsels. They didn't

The Art Of War

excerpt1 Day was a-dawning sluggishly on Saints Eusignius, Nona and Fabius, a Saturday as it happened; like unto a blunt blade scraping at the gloom caked all over our bodies did the daybreak appear, and impotent, too. The bells tolled half-heartedly and a thin film of

The Accident

excerptStanding in front of the Corso building on Calea Victoriei one day, he felt someone's familiar gaze follow him from across the street, as if to catch his eye. He crossed over, as though answering a call, and discovered a picture of Ann among several other portraits

Occurrences In Current Unreality

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. P. B. Shelley When I stare at a fixed point upon the wall at length, it sometimes happens that I no longer know who I am, nor where I am. On such occasions I experience my lack of identify from afar, as if for a moment I had become a

Purgatory

Beetle legs ran across his face and he woke up. He stretched and got up, threw the tiny insect on the floor and crushed it, still half asleep. Then he looked down over his body searchingly, pleased with the way he could make his arm muscles twitch and jump as he wanted.

Yesterday

To clarify the unities of place, time and action in this world: here, now and thus, when one can no longer believe in the laws of happening, because this place is not in the now, and this now does not thus give temporality to the here. The present reality of things past

Editor's Note

Only when dialogue and tolerance begin to work at normal parameters, will truths be understood in their essence, and applied in the practice of life.  Hoping that a book may constitute a celebration even in these unpredictable, amazing, and occasionally grievous times,

Everything Must Go, Or 5 Reasons Why I Stayed In Bucharest Instead Of Moving To Paris, Florence Or New York

I've always been fascinated by this city. Still, I can understand it doesn't easily translate to others. Here is a list of things one should try to perceive as charming, although - by all standards - they don't qualify as such:1. Filth. It is the quintessential

Bucharest As An Alternative Space

It may be said about some cities that they are theatrical; that – in other words – they look like a stage set. Take, for instance, Venice or Naples. It may be only an illusion, however, given a host of plays by Goldoni or Eduardo de Filippo whose plots revolve around