The last touch through the fence of the white gate, the fingerprints. Brother was running, dragging me by my plump hands. Don't tell a soul where you've been, got it? I could barely walk with my hands full of flyer calendars. For half of my life, you've whispered to me, turn the love toward yourself. My eternal champion, I would have replied in English, if only I had known what jest had stolen you away from me, at three years old I couldn't write yet. I am on the ship from the photo. You were the best father in the world. My child's hands were holding those flyers tight for your happiness.
*
To my father, the one who jokingly swore at Ceaușescu. Poarta Albă, 8 years in the gutter. 100% real.
(Translated by Constantin Istrate / 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 September 2021, the group has 7.150 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. 
