When the words start to jump around and curl around my neck, they hit the walls angrily and then bounce back into me, I slowly sit in the middle of them and with careful movements, I gather myself I gather and I gather the pieces with the spit that I did not throw at you to drown your sharp axes. I gather my legs with my knees close to my mouth, without hurry. The pain cuts in time and slows it down, like a sledgehammer in its mouth. Then I fold my hands and I embrace myself, the only one I have. I let my head fall to my chest. I shut myself up inside.
(Translated by Andreea-Alexandra Șerbănescu / 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 October 2021, the group has 7.275 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. 
