Welcome, said a metallic voice from within the table. We provide your desired connection. Three feelings are available for the configured period: envy, sadness and hatred. Choose now. Sadness was the last one to be tried by him. In a flash a heaviness on his chest made him exhale with a grunt and the whole world became of a darker grey. He was sobbing peacefully with his head down. The time had expired. He released a final sigh when his eyes met those of the person from the next table. He recognize the last sparks of hatred.
(Translated by Camelia Băluţă / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by Silvia Petrescu, coordinator of the translations)
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 Ficţiuni Reale. 
