I had an hourglass on the desk. Whenever I flipped it, I would imagine the sand pouring between his fingers on the day he searched for the engagement ring on the beach. I threw away the hourglass when I pawned off that ring. I gave away all of his clothes and shoes to a second hand place. I split his hats and scarves amongst friends. After such a long time, I came to terms with the fact that he committed suicide. But, why, for heaven's sake, did I find inside the travel bag which I wanted to take on our honeymoon, his last after shave?
(Translated by Jin Cristian Yang / 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. 
