You scare me. Actually, it's not that you scare me, I'm scared that I might scare you away. And that things might not work out. I had been thinking about you since before I met you. I make up scenarios in my head and I can't figure out how to make my words line up with yours so you can understand and respond to me. Respond in a way that only I would understand and answer you from the middle of a crowd and you and you alone would hear me. Let's enjoy something we don't even have. Let's bring our own characters to life. What a date! I keep staring at the screen. Should I click send? Send.
(Translated by Elena-Carmen Bobocescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 March 2021, the group has 4.500 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. 
