I liked her, she had that quelque chose. I'm getting married, I say. Take it easy, my aunt says, first you need to pass the remote control test. She knew an auntie who sold these off the books. First you tell her that the batteries are weak and they need to be replaced. If she hits it with the left palm with hope, it's a red flag, she says. Then you hide it somewhere well. If she says you should get up because you must be sitting on it, after you've told her three times you're not sitting on it, red flag, run. She doesn't trust you. I'm calm now. And single. I'm selling a remote control.
(Translated by Ioana Oacheşu / 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 June 2021, the group has 6.650 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. 
