You go out, you see her, she likes you, you like her, you drive her home after the third date and leaves after three years. You get tattoos and go to therapy. You go out again, arrive at another house, on the first date this time, you leave after six months. You wanted to get that sleeve finished anyway. You come and go, they come and go, thank God you have 1.92cm, 100kgs, lots of skin and free time. You stop going to bars, you download Tinder. Swipe right and get to her house. Maybe you'll stay here for good, too bad you take off your sweater and she sees the mermaids on your arms.
(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 Ficţiuni Reale. 
