I step on the platform in Ploieşti and I suddenly feel lighter. I quickly aim for the pockets. There are cigarettes in the right pocket, two packages, the little book of prayers to my chest, out of harm's way, the jar with plum marmalade from mommy in the left pocket of the coat. Inside the pockets of my trousers there was the handkerchief, lightsome, it's not her, and a photo of Daria, the daughter of madame Lili, her place has flowers on the railings. And she, the most beautiful of them all. Oh, Daria, oh. Oh, Lord, I have everything. But not Daria. She's not here. She remained at her wretched mother, because there was no one to water those damn flowers.
(Translated by Ana Maria Adriana Oprea / 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 4.300 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. 
