Translated by Mona Lepadatu



It is springtime, Easter Sunday, sunny, warm and slightly windy. Ideal weather for walking in the park and weeding onion beds. A day when you are not allowed to stay indoors for no reason whatsoever.

I go to the kitchen window, in fact the only one not showing to some neighbours houses and look at the lime tree in blossom. I spoke earlier to an old friend, Cosette, doctor at the Colentina hospital and she said that the flu come back is not to be taken lightly.

Two doves are cooing and knocking into my window.
‘Open, open!’ shout they in chorus.
‘I’m not allowed to, I’ve got a cold’, cut I their enthusiasm mercilessly.

One of them is blue, has a twisted tail at the back and a big wart by its bill. The other one is white with a long chestnut-coloured tail and tic since birth: it keeps shaking its head, as if saying no all the time to someone. Curiosity pushes me to open the window, though.

‘What do you want?’
‘To ask you something’, says the chestnut-white one. ‘If you had wings like mine and a round tail like my friend, would you fly?’ says he, slowly beginning to shake his head.
‘By all means. I would save petrol money, breaks tiles, oil…’
‘But if God sent you to get him LM lights cigarettes and the shops were closed? Would you have the courage to tell God that everything is closed? Or would you break into Ionescu’s shop?’
‘I’d break into Ionescu’s shop’, think I aloud. ‘I’ve seen what smokers do when they run out of cigarettes… But what do you mean, God smokes?’
‘How should we know?’ retort the two pretending to be chasing flies.
‘What do you mean how should you know?’
‘We’re doing a poll’, explains the chestnut-white pigeon vigorously shaking his head.
‘If St. Elie were willing to give you his place, whom would you strike first? Nicola or Andreea Marin ?’ continues with his programme the round-tailed one.
‘Is St. Elie’s place vacant?’
‘No, but you should think freely. Think ProTV !’
‘I wouldn’t strike anyone, I’m too kindhearted…’
‘Is that mosquito yours?’

I look and on my left shoulder I discover a mosquito sitting comfortably, cross-legged. Right when I was about to smash it I hear a small voice:
‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you.’
‘What wouldn’t you do if you were me?’
‘I wouldn’t hit myself.’
‘And why, if you please, shouldn’t I hit you? So that you can bite me?’
‘I won’t bite you because in fact I’m not a mosquito. I’m just one of your thoughts. I’ve been bugging you for a few nights.’
‘What thought?’

Bored, the two pigeons fly away. How rude are birds nowadays! No hello, no good-bye… As my work colleague, Cristi, who has just moved to the Giulesti district, likes to say: even in fancy clothes a donkey will be a donkey.

‘The one born two weeks ago in Poenari. Do you remember the day when you were binding the vine and, out of the blue, someone came into the courtyard with his cart and started to unload a canopy bed and two old armchairs?’
‘Of course I do. I thought he was mad and I asked him why he was unloading furniture into my yard.’
‘And?’
‘He said he wasn’t mad, that he was the devil himself and he had come to take me. But because he liked Poenari he was going to stay a couple more weeks.’
‘Well, I am that thought bugging you ever since’ buzzed him in my ear discretely.
‘I don’t like you’, admit I.
‘Because I am small? When I was young I didn’t like fish oil, you know. That’s why I am feeble. A thought can be as small as a mosquito or as strong as a horse, you know… There’s a goat calling you!’

I look down the street and indeed, a billy goat has stopped on the pavement and was calling me so loudly that its beard was shaking.
‘Why are you calling me?’ ask I, puzzled.
‘I have a business proposition for you’ says the goat.
‘I’m listening.’
If you give me 285 earth worms, three centimeters each, I give you this pickaxe to take it to Poenari.’
‘Is it new?’
‘Who?’ hiccups the goat.
‘The pickaxe.’
‘It’s new.’
‘Then I don’t want it.’

A familiar voice comes from next door.
‘Sache, what are you doing there, in the open window? Go to bed, I’ll rub your back with vinegar one more time! You have temperature again!’