I don't need a life jacket. Don't tell me how to float, for that I know myself. No, I don't need your help. Don't tell me where polaris is, I don't care. You don't need to conquer the waves, that's why I'm here too. You're smothering me. I don't want to be a part of you. You're always dragging me to a shore I don' believe in. Your calling irritates me. Take your rocks back and stop putting them in my pockets when I pretend to be engulfed. I won't stop drifting apart, even when my storm becomes our storm.
(Translated by Ana-Maria Denisa Neagu / 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 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. 
