We are going out for ice cream. Dad, but I can't move. You'll be fine tomorrow. We're going in the morning. Daddy, it hurts. My dear, you'll be fine. Daddy is with you. It might hurt a little now, but you'll be fine tomorrow. Can you promise me you're gonna be okay by tomorrow and we can go and get some ice cream? Okay, dad, I promise. The child fell asleep smiling. Beside him, his father wept softly, so he wouldn't scare him off. The doctors had told him that if the boy made it through this night, he had a chance to get better. The next morning, a father was crying alone on the street, holding an ice cream in his hand. You promised me. You promised me.
(Translated by Iulia-Teodora Urea / 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 May 2021, the group has 6.400 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. 
