I had been following John for about two weeks. In the end, I caught him, but it was hard. Slippery as a fish. But now I got him. A confession had to be dragged out of him to find out where he hid the money. What money? Well, the ones we stole together, but he attempted to trick me. So, I am not going to treat him tenderly. I pull out the knife and threaten to cut off his ears. He doesn't seem impressed. I threaten to cut something out of his pants, but he's dumb as a fish. But, when I tell him about his girlfriend, held captive next door, he begins to talk.
(Translated by Iuliana Boruga Danciu / 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. 
