It was a Monday. It started raining, a summer rain with small droplets. I was walking through the park, listening to the sound of rain drops falling on my umbrella. The lake was hazy, and a young man was standing on the bridge above it. His face was covered by a blue umbrella. I got closer and greeted him, as I was in the mood to talk with somebody. He was startled when he heard me. He mumbled something that resembled a greeting. I drew even closer and realized we went to high school together. He looked at me and smiled. And then we strolled through the park together.
(Translated by Ana Stănilă / 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 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. 
