Mum, I met on the stairs with auntie Victoriţa from the 2
nd floor and she told me she was happy for you, that you stayed single for a long time, but now you are certainly doing well, because you have a boyfriend. She was laughing, as you know her, when she says something that leaves one completely puzzled. Now, that I look better at you, I see you are in full bloom. Could it be that you are in love? How could you not tell me? You know I found out from other people? How come? Is he a retired person, as you are? Victoriţa is green with envy. No, gal, he is born in '84, just like you. He will come right away to eat a meatballs soup.
(Translated by Raluca Simion / 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. 
