I shed my old, ever transparent, self, making way for a fresh one. Day by day, I keep burning to ashes so I can rebuild myself. Empty outlines are staring at me from the mirror. I am able to turn myself into everything needed. Today I'm going to an interview. I slip into myconfident and strong self, with perfect
make-up. I rehearse the lines and respective gesture until flawless. I do the same in every circumstance. Everybody likes me, but once I am alone again, I find it harder and harder to remember who I really used to be.
(Translated by Carol Popa Zafiriadi / 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. 
