I get home, you heat some soup for me, I ask how was your day, you answer indifferently, I sit down at the table, you remember you forgot the bread, doesn't matter, I have some leftover pretzels in my backpack, you ask how my report turned out, pretty good I reply apathetically, you lay the table cloth, I help you, you bring the sour cream, I also ask for some spicy peppers, you lay the plates, I get the cutlery, you fold two napkins, I pour the wine. I think it needs some more salt, it's too sour, something's missing. The soup is tasty, just that it's reheated. "I have someone else." "Me too."
(Translated by Ioana Stan / 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 February 2021, the group has 4.300 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. 
