Uncle Gică was the only person who caressed all the stray dogs. The scars on his cheeks were caused by other homeless people. He didn't have a home and lived in our staircase, covered with stuff from a few neighbours. Even if he lived in the cold, uncle Gică knew how to warm us up on the inside in the morning, singing
What a wonderful world. Every beginning of September, uncle Gică used to leave a red leaf at our doors. Today I am unhappy, I didn't realize it was autumn and it hurts that I have to pour some plum brandy on the floor.
(Translated by Alexandra Lica / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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. 
