No photo can ever capture the whole truth. The 2nd of May, National Youth Day. We were happy during that time. We watched the city from above. An unforgettable image. It was so beautiful. The mountains could be seen in the distance. If you watched closely, you could see the church spires. There weren't that many, back then. But the bells were heard. That Sunday, only odd-numbered cars could travel. And still, the image was clear. It was one of those wonderful days I only found out about much later. Even the strawberries had been radiated.
(Translated by Ana Stănilă / 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.