Iona

The Alley Boys

excerpt  3. THE INCREDIBLE ADVENTURES OF STING AND STUNG Sting and Stung came into being in a jar of mustard, on the very first morning after I'd dreamt of serpentine road bends and devils. Had it been necessary to invent a realm for them to come forth from – a

Plush Plumbeous

excerpt PLUSH PLUMBEOUS RETURNS TO THE TOWN OF MORE-THAN-A-WEE-BIT Once upon a time, there was a place. It was formless and nameless, and no one had yet travelled through it on the tram. At that time, hundreds of thousands of abandoned dolls had begun to wander hither and

The Children's Crusade

excerpt Attention on platform three! Please stand clear of the edge of platform three! The special train is now arriving from Oradea! Attention on platform three! Please stand clear of the edge of platform three! The special holiday train is now arriving from Oradea! The

Andilandi - Vlad's Journey To The Other Realm

excerpt  THE OTHER REALM To those who may wonder who or what Andilandi can be, I will tell that it is not a child. As I will tell them that it is not the name of a cuddling pet or of some computer game (at least not yet). Andilandi is not even the name of a remarkably

The Story Of Ting-A-Ma-Ling, The Softer Feminine Software Designer

Ting-a-ma-Ling, the Softer Feminine Software Designer, tightened her lips slightly. She could not really put up with people talking so cynically about old men, kings or no kings. And Mol-loch's way, with his sheep's eyes and smiles, obnoxiously courting her all

The Boy's Shadow

Morning time. The good-humoured sun, with his ruddy chubby cheeks, stretches out his hand through the room's window and tenderly caresses a boy who's still asleep. The Boy is slowly waking up: he rises on the edge of the bed and he's surprised as he discovers

Stories About Irina

excerpt IRINA'S AND TOPKI'S GANG First of all, let's all give a hearty laugh. Like this: ha-ha! Ho-ho! Did you all laugh? It's good that you laughed, because now you can sit quietly and listen properly to the STORY.  Chapter OneChapter One doesn't

Romanians' Childhood: Analyzing A Big Question

How on earth have we survived our childhood? If you were a child in the 60s, 70s or early 80s, how did you manage to survive? From early childhood on we would travel in buses and cars with neither seatbelts nor airbags… a trip in the trailer of a lorry was a remarkable

The Story Of Pacala

Pacala has been a movie hero since as early as 1915. The most recent film, on a much lighter note than the story above, is Pacala's Return, or Pacala 2 (2006), directed by Geo Saizescu (who also directed Pacala, 1974 - click here to see preview), and subject to harsh

Nobody's Angels

excerpts  PROMISES  Those of us who looked after the severely ill, close to their end in hospitals or foster homes made a lot of promises to them. Some asked for the impossible, namely to save them from death, but most of them only wished not to die alone and, above all,

The Child Is Another Soul

In the Balkans full of various mythologies, it is said that nobody can move faster than angels[1] when it comes to passing from one human being to another, thus populating the earth. Yet angelic beings are not among the early manifestations of our national imagery. Romanians

Paradise Now

For any visitor of the Danube Delta it is extremely difficult to ignore the beauties it lavishly displays all around. One can obviously go to the Danube Delta simply to do business there, in fisheries, in shipping or in any other industrial branch. One can go there to participate