Whenever the nomads would order him to kneel on walnut shells because he didn't make enough shillings from begging, the harmonica hanging down his chest would softly promise him a life of kind words, meatballs and choco candies from auntie. In order not to feel anything, he was looking for his furry friend. In his mind, he was hugging him and telling him about his
day-long troubles. And it echoed in his mind, "Ladies and gentlemen, it's the miracle show". The bearded lady, the fakir, the two of them: Mihail, a circus dog and him, his boy. One day.
(Translated by Cristina-Bianca Ion / 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. 
