I rubbed two stones and managed to light a
half-wet cigarette. I'll rot, but it's okay, I hope others rot too. Thus, the patch of earth can expand. Or so I want to believe. How happy I am that I don't have anyone. No one will complain to me. Until I lose consciousness, I will say the prayer of the heart and maybe I will play Pheasant. An airplane? No, it's a seagull. Or? It's a plane, of course. I don't deserve a second chance. I don't want to be saved, then to live well, and then be scared of death.
(Translated by Elena Creţu / 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 April 2021, the group has 5.600 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, Răzvan Penescu, and Luchian Abel. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficţiuni Reale. 
