I'm up on the pedestal and savouring my own
self-sufficiency. I look down with contempt. Suddenly I trip and fall. From far too high up. I'm surrounded by mud. Begrudgingly I get up and shake it off. From head to toe, I'm soiled. I tiptoe across to not completely feel what I squash and start to take bigger steps. He mumbles about and when it bursts, I evade the droplets. A bubble forms near my face, I try to avoid it, it bursts, droplets completely drench me, as I get ready to spit with disgust. Oh. Ah. I feel him on my lips. I want more.
(Translated by Jin Cristian Yang / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 January 2022, the group has 7.830 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. 
