If you don't eat all you have in your plate, you won't grow. Don't eat so much, otherwise you'll grow too much. Don't, don't eat so little, otherwise you won't grow anymore. Don't speak unasked. Learn how to be silent and obedient. If you keep running so much and if you don't tie your hair up well, the boys won't like you. If they don't like you, you won't get married and you'll make me look like a fool in the village. The little girl was looking careless through the window at the yard full of roses. Her little brother started to cry. Don't be sad, mom. If no one wants her, I'll marry her though she's ugly.
(Translated by Alexandra Cica / 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. 
