You can stop for a moment. We need to talk. Leave the dishes. It's important. Please sit down. We've been together for a long time now. You deserve to know the truth. Don't interrupt me. Just listen to me. Until the end. I can't go on like this. It's not fair. Neither to you, nor to the children. I've been carrying this burden for long. And I'm tired of lying. Of playing a role in my own life. As a husband for you, a father for my children. I need a change. I need to be
myself. From now on, I am Carmen.
(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. 
