I knew the moment would come, the doctor had warned me: this breed doesn't live past the age of 12. He was almost 14, and still, God, why so soon? He recognized the sound of the engine and started crying. I swear to you, there were tears streaming down his face. He wanted to hug me, but his legs would not obey. Don't cry, the doctor told us, he won't suffer. He gave him the shot, then put him in a yellow bag. All my life I'll regret not bringing him to rest here, under the walnut tree in the orchard.
(Translated by Cristina Fliter / 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. 
