I look in the mirror and feel like shooting myself. I feel nauseous every time I forgive in His name. I find myself overwhelmed, their stained confessions full of egocentric regrets make me feel worn out. I feel like I'm in a loop, always the same sinners with the same repeated confessed sins, a kind of vicious autism. The
mother-in-law hates her
daughter-in-law and begs for mercy, but the hatred does not just disappear. What shall I say to her in His name? That she's forgiven just for confessing? Is it halfway through? I keep deep down all the filthy thoughts and all the doubts. A secret is a secret.
(Translated by Iuliana Boruga Danciu / 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. 
