They met late, after 40 years. They were both coming from sad experiences and an even sadder divorce. They had no expectations. It was love at first sight. A merging of mind and soul in a second. The longest and most pleasant second. They lived their love with gratitude, like a gift. How beautiful you are, he sometimes whispered to her, looking into her serene eyes. How beautiful you are, she'd reply, admiring him. He would wake up at night and look for her. It was only when he touched her warm, sleeping body that he would be soothed. She was there. For him.
(Translated by Carla-Marina Ștefănescu / 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. 
