When you departed I was left hanging, like an unanswered question, like a water stream that no longer flows. In your eyes I saw the meaning of life, in your smile I found peace, day and night were well-spent and the hardships of life were but small feathers for my great shoulders to carry, powered by pride. Tears, bursts of laughter and gratefulness for your beauty, purity and bright mind. You were shining. And then your wings were cut off, your light was extinguished. Your life will remain unlived and mine will stay stuck in the image of the first time you looked at me, cooing, as I held you to my bosom.
(Translated by Lucia-Alexandra Brînaru-Mitrofan / 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. 
