In my first recording, I have been apologising for 11 minutes. I wasn't born equipped for this life, I said, trying desperately to explain my helplessness and take it with me. Two years later, in a different message, I bluntly said I would never apologise for not choosing to live in misery. I have one purpose: to forgive myself for not having the dignity to voice this earlier: not struggling for other's wellbeing, others who do not see me when I am here, but would only notice my absence. Today, I am for myself.
(Translated by Ioana Grigoruță / 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 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. 
