8.000.000 $

John and his friends were just robbing the bank. They had no trouble accessing the vault. Now they were putting the money in bags. They were in a hurry because they didn't have much time. The patrol was about to make their rounds. They finished quickly and got into three cars that went in different directions. John and Jeff went into hiding and, after sleeping, turned on the TV on the news. It was just announced that eight million had been stolen. What thieves are the guys from the bank, we only took four, said John as he took off his cashier's badge.

(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.