Go. We set off together on different tracks. I went through the first kilometers without the realization of being in a race, I enjoyed every step, exploring the world, learning about life. Then I began to feel the competition in my bones, in my heart and in my walking. Now I'm fighting a disease in a hospital ward. Looking at the lady who is polishing her scythe at the edge of the bed and saying to her with a smile: you won. Not yet, she said. You still have to learn to ride a bike. I'm 90 years old and there is no way in hell I'm pedaling.
(Translated by Ecaterina Bucovanu / 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 July 2021, the group has 6.800 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. 
