When he would show up around the corner, with his pipe all worn by the
plum-coloured lips, all the youngsters would pull him to the roadside ditch and ask to hear his words of wisdom. He'd sit down, all distinguished, with a grunt brimming with wisdom. You smurfs, there's no greater treasure than a soul that is too plentiful. And I've been blessed with a life of ease: a spirited woman, happy and healthy kids, cheeky sheep, cats and dogs as much as the yard could take, and the blue sky with the Sun peeking behind the green hill. Abundance.
(Translated by Carla Bețianu / 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 May 2022, the group has 8,350 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. 
