Today I don't turn off the attic lights.
Two night butterflies meet on the shining lightbulb. Should I press the switch, I'll drive them away. I watch at length as they flick their wings in the yellowish light. In those few days that they live, night butterflies have, perhaps, a single purpose. I pluck up my courage, unscrew a bottle of red wine. I call Anca. It rings but she doesn't answer. I insist. She probably sees my number. Yes, she hates me. She answers. I loosen the lump in my throat with a last mouthful of wine. Anca, forgive me. Now I'm sure I've found my source of light.
(Translated by Ioana Ștefan / 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. 
