Don't take a selfie, it's going to look bad. Put the camera on timer and run from the table to the couch. Like that. This one isn't good because the cat is ignoring us. I blinked in this one. Oh, Cedric, stop barking. Come here. This one is going to look good, come on. This one is also not good because I want it to look instantaneous, but it doesn't look like that. Hold Cici in your arms to hide your belly. Why aren't you smiling? That's not a smile, you're just showing your teeth. It can be seen from afar that it is fake. Like you're constipated. You know what, take a picture only of us and I'll just tag you.
(Translated by Claudia Alexandra Văcărescu / 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. 
