We, the ones who meet at
Cheapster, are all the same, because all of us have worked at the pipe factory. Now, left without our jobs, we gather to drink a spritzer, so to avenge our abstinence and thirst for cultivation. Titi Scobârlan has retired eight years ago, Țăpănel a month ago. Titi comes close to the fresher's ear and yells: Aye geezer, were you kicked out to retirement? I've
gone into retirement, men (he winked at me), this is how you say it. Titi looks puzzled, he sits up and he fixes his hat on his head. I think I'm goin' to walk
into-outside to make a phone call. But when I come back
out-inside, we're goin' to resume our talk.
(Translated by Diana-Maria Croitoru / 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. 
