This sucks. Nothing's like it used to be. He kept mumbling as he treaded through the porcelain. These ones, too. They've been talking bull for two weeks now. Either they haven't got the materials, or two of them have gone overseas, it's always this or that. Jesus, are you done? Uhhh, it's done, but it's got a weak spot, a sort of Achilles' heel. Alright, on three: Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. Bang. A pink Humpty Dumpty was cursing something about a cannon, looking for his cigarettes. Another myth gone to hell.
(Translated by Carla Beţianu / 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.