I'm looking forward to spying on my neighbours, so I go up with the telescope on the block. Gently I take it out of its covering and let the fun begin. I can't see anything on the 9
th floor. On the 8
th floor the same, they've got the lights off. On the 7
th floor, I can barely see something, but I can't figure it out. On the 6
th floor, pitch dark. On the 5
th floor, it is like my eyes are closed. On the 4
th floor, it looks like a firefly is flying through the
pitch-black night. On the 3
rd floor
pitch-dark again. On the 2
nd floor, I distinguish a dirty grey. On the 1
st floor, darkness. Downstairs, total darkness. Man, what the hell? Is everyone asleep? Ah, silly me. I forgot to take the lid off.
(Translated by Iuliana Danciu / 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 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. 
