Photocopying

Elmi, as his name recommends him, could be a typical guy if it weren't for all of his crazy ideas. Get this, digging a fountain in the garden to get to the Americans (he didn't manage to, but at least he managed to get polluted water straight from the groundwater). Taking off by means of a huge bunch of balloons (he only managed to get sore muscles). Cooling the house by leaving the fridge door open. Get a vacuum in the bedroom. Imponderability in the cellar. Now he's starting to photocopy the internet. He says he wants to leave something behind.

(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.