Miss, a moment. Your ID, please. Do you know why I stopped you? I hope it's not serious. There, you did it again. I'm afraid I have to fine you. What for? Come now Miss, you said it yourself. And I saw the smile earlier as well, when you were looking up at the sky, and at that blooming cherry tree, I think. Excuse me? Why is that a crime? Miss, you broke law no. 215/2022, annotated and revised, also known as The
Anti-Hope Law. I see you're still smiling. Hoping against hope, aren't you?
(Translated by Bianca-Maria Ciucașu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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. 
