As I was washing the dishes

As I was washing the dishes, I sullied the sink. As I was washing the sink, I sullied the sponge. As I was washing the sponge, I sullied my hands. As I was washing my hands, I sullied the soap. As I was washing the soap, I sullied my hands. As I was washing my hands, I sullied the soap. As I was washing the soap, I sullied my hands. As I was washing my hands for the 35th time and the soap for the 37th time, you cleared off. As you were clearing off, I sullied the phone with words never found in the dictionary.

(Translated by Alexandr Cotar / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by Professor Nadina Vişan)


Real Fiction is a collective project started in 2013 by Florin Piersic Jr. The concept of Real Fiction continued to exist as a Facebook group, after a volume of stories was published at Humanitas Publishing House. (In January 2021, the group has 3.000 members.) The authors write ultra-short stories, with the texts limited to 500 characters (in Romanian, so the length of the English translation might be a little different) - a flash-fiction exercise on a topic that changes every few days. The group's coordinators are Florin Piersic Jr., Gabriel Molnar, and Luchian Abel. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)

*Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.