You see that, on my knees? I was putting roof tiles on my house and I slipped, because it had rained. This one is a souvenir from my cellmate. He didn't have a sense of humor. Here, I was making love with the neighbor from second floor, when her chihuahua caught us in bed. I can't forget the bite he had, that rascal. This, on my face, under the eyes, it's not a tear. I was making polenta, and I got lucky. I was fortunate too, when they only amputated my arms, after the accident. Now I make tattoos with my left leg only. So, don't be afraid of needles. I'll finish your tiger in a moment.
(Translated by Irina Bîlcan / 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 Ficțiuni Reale. 
