The shovel bites into the earth hungrily, leaving behind dirt and the smell of moisture. It had rained the day before, and Gravedigger Ion was swearing to himself, convinced that yet another bastard's ruined his mood for drinking booze and playing cards with the drunkards that were waiting for him at the pub. However much he had left, enough for a bottle. He was furious at the rain now and at God always. He was craving a shot and while he was maneuvering the shovel all he wished for was to get a good night's sleep. And for booze. He thought for a moment longer. Better drowned in booze than dead in a coffin.
(Translated by Bianca-Maria Ciucașu / 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. 
