against my will, and despite my efforts, I couldn't convince the expert committee. They say I can't lift ballerinas anymore, I gasp when I bend down and I squeak so loud that it reaches the back of the room. When it came to my age, I was more ashamed than when my former slightly disabled colleague accused me of being incapable. And here I am, retired, without tights and points, but still eager to dance my life away. I got a job in Chippendales, where I don't need to pick anything up, not even my pants.
(Translated by Marius-Alin Lazăr / 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 March 2022, the group has 8,050 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. 
