A king once lived in an icy land, but it's said he had a soul so warm he melted everything he touched. So all his life he lived surrounded by the chill of the things he loved so much, yet never dared to touch. But then one day into this land, an old and bitterly frozen dame came, seeking shelter. Taking pity, he offered up his chamber, but as the poor woman was still shivering, he decided to take her into his arms. Thus came to be the ocean of infinity.
(Translated by Ioana Diana Sandu / 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 December 2021, the group has 7.750 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. 
