He took her hand and passed his fingers over the lines. He longed to read the secret of her life that was written there. He wanted to know if he was there too, he needed to know. They knew each other for some time now, but she had always been a mystery to him. He tried reading the deep, black eyes but nothing came out of it. An abysmal longing seemed to call her and he couldn't tell if he was enough to fill the spot. He had so many questions for her, but he couldn't find his words, so he let go of her hand.
(Translated by Andra Daiana Păuna / 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. 
