Don't cake up like a tramp, my mom always said. Only whores do that. Don't you ever wear skirts up your ass, like those hookers. Don't lie, it won't get you far. When did the years pass by? She's still here, waiting for something. Until today, when she put on that burgundy lipstick in the back of the drawer, rocked that skirt up her ass, which she never wore before, and looked in the mirror: that's it, I'm not lying, I'm not lying to myself anymore. Then she went in the park, sat on a bench and breathed in: today I finally start truly living.
(Translated by Elena-Diana Cocîr / 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 November 2021, the group has 7.500 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. 
