The idea that he could be the last survivor tortured his mind. Each day, he would walk tens of kilometres in search of any other man. The streets were deserted. The parks were gloomy. The museums were empty. There was not a soul to be seen even in the supermarkets. The way in which the wind whistled was a bad omen. He couldn't live with that thought. He decided to put an end to his life. That was it. He climbed each storey of the skyscraper from the business centre. No one could be seen. He climbed on the edge of the roof. That wasn't a life to be lived. Well, goodbye! During his fall, he heard a telephone ringing.
(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. 
