I yanked the hose hard, like a herdsman, and splashed my car so hard that the horses drowned and the rust showed clean. Do you want me to help you, the boy at the pump shouted to me in the impetuously provoked uproar. No, thanks, boy, I'm practicing my strengths today. Then have you got a cigarette? He insisted. Of course, I replied, proud to have one. And I cried under my breath, but I was also glad I had the last one, then I made the ultimate arrogance: throw in some diesel, as much as you want. 50 lei.
(Translated by Lenuța Bejenaru / 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. 
