I go out on the street in the morning, I'm not very communicative. The woman sweeps the street, I greet her and I smile, she smiles back at me, I take her smile and put it in my pocket. A little later, the old man sells me roses, my favourite flowers, after the freesias, obviously. I buy roses, oh, and some green onions, all from there. He smiles at me too, I take his smile and put it in my pocket. I cross the street, I have to have breakfast, how are you, happy birthday, another smile in the pocket. God, what full pockets I have.
(Translated by Diana Stănescu / 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 February 2022, the group has 7,950 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. 
