Today too there were many of them, some came very early, others were late, some seemed desperate, some were forcibly smiling. Who could possibly understand them? Only they know what they provide for exchange, as none of them come out whole. No one talks in the hall, for fear of losing their turn, or, worse, of changing their mind. I pray for each of them in my mind. I don't even get to finish the prayer, as they've already left, happy with the exchange made. Here I dust, there I sweep pawned souls. Then I turn off the light.
(Translated by Ecaterina Bucovanu / 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. 
