The last time that she saw him was in the supermarket, about five days ago. They met by chance and she almost didn't even recognize him. He had an unshaven beard and untidy hair. He looked depressed, tired, maybe bored, or even sad. They chatted for a while, then when they said goodbye, he told her he was leaving for Alaska. They started laughing, he always surprised her with a joke like that.
Today she is looking through the closet for a black dress, because at 12 she needs to arrive at the ceremony.
(Translated by Mihaela Ţarida / 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. 
