The cauldron was boiling on the iron stove, bubbling with melted lard. Add lye, wormwood and pain. It wasn't until the stew took on the color of the gall that she uttered the curse and began to shed tears. She cut her hand and drips of oblivion, repentance and forgiveness started rolling down. He won't be mine, he won't be hers, and he won't be at all. Nothing, nowhere, never. Then she sprinkled some nails and hair of a dead body, frog scales and rabid dog drivel. Pumice steam rose into the air and the jury of old women burst into applause. You are admitted, the chief witch decreed.
(Translated by Ioana Negrea / 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. 
