I look under the bed, then in the wardrobe, I go into the bathroom and pull the shower curtain, I go downstairs to the living room, turn on the lights, check the kitchen, the pantry, I go into the basement, I climb to the attic and then repeat. I get to the bedroom and check the time. There are five more hours. I walk out to the yard, go into the garage and then in the tool shed and the greenhouse. I return to the bedroom and wait for the clock to strike three. I get my sleeping bag, flashlight and backpack. I prop up the ladder and climb. Morning finds me in the stables, sun in my eyes, cow licking my face.
(Translated by Ana Stănilă / 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 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. 
