Photocopying

I'm not superstitious, but that morning I felt that something bad would happen if I came back. It seemed to me I hadn't started the day well when I had gone out, not to mention that damn neighbor's cat across the street that always scares off when she sees me. She runs like crazy and cuts my way. I just returned. I took the money I made last night, went down the stairs quickly, opened the door of the building. Heard someone shout: falling. Mr. Angel Boss, I swear I didn't get to use any banknotes. Basically, only you and I know. Does that count?

(Translated by Alma Teodora Miron / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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.