We need one of those who doesn't understand what we want from him. You tell him we're training him for an important mission, which is to carry the bag from one institution to another. You take him out to lunch with you, make him feel important, then throw him cannon fodder. What do you mean, cannon fodder, Excellency? You mean we throw him in the can. But make sure he's dumb. Talk about things he doesn't understand, but that seem important to him, say: acquisitions, someone from the upper classes, you know who, we've got your back, I'll be the brother who'll sort you out.
(Translated by Lorina Xiaoyu Hou / 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 August 2021, the group has 7.000 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 Ficțiuni Reale. 
