Our breakups are different. Let's say we saw someone off to the train station, they leave for Omsk, Tomsk, or for Siberia, to work on the Amur; the bundles and suitcases are put in the train in advance, then we sit down on a bench next to each other and we rest like that in silence, not saying a word. We think of the one next to us and they do the same. We don't say anything anymore, it doesn't do. We just think and feel how we're thought of. We breath out. Then, when they blow the whistle for departure, we kiss three times on the cheek and people get on the train.
Do svidania.
(Translated by Alexandra Lica / 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.
