Ioane, does God punish us for deeds or for thoughts? For deeds, I say. But if I wish to do harm, but do not act on it, am I still a good man? I do not know. I care for my sheep and I miss Nora. My heart aches whenever a little lamb dies, but I am also envious when another has more. More and with no effort. Maybe he is lucky? Luck must be shared equally. Because some people have too much of everything, and I only have toil. And I think about Nora when I am far, and I find her sour when I am in her yard. But I never beat her. I say I am a good man.
(Translated by Marta Fulga / 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. 
