The funeral is the first morning without you. I won't shower, although I should, I won't drink coffee, although I need it. I should get out of bed, but what for? A story has ended. Your book has ended. And I remained here, pinned between these walls, alive. Put a black dress on and come tell me about how it is without me. Sit on a bench and read me Tolstoi. Play me your favourite music. Whatever you do, don't leave me alone. We are shadows to each other. Or maybe lights.
(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / 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 June 2022, the group has 8,500 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. 
