He's over 50, advanced in years but lacking in other things. In May he ended up without a job and without a car too. His cruel destiny had, however, shown him his path. Now he channels all his failings into a single activity, which torments him and brings him pleasure, just enough to give him the impression that something still stirs inside him. He rides on the bus every day and takes a different one at every stop. He gets on last, always, every time doing so behind the barest pair of legs. His gaze tears at cloth up to the opening he always pictures the same way.
(Translated by Cristina Fliter / 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. 
