Ambrose the Well Sinker was not a man like any other, he must have had something unearthly in his bones, otherwise how could he draw sweet springs even from dry stones? You would often see himpressing an ear against earth's breast to listen for a breath of water. And as he made his way downward, he sang: Dig and dig until the stars in the water you're able to reach. It must have been an incantation because right away the earth would unbind its steaming waters. Then the Well Sinker would strokethe waters with the pads of his fingers to tame them, the same way you stroke a balky horse with stars on its forehead.
(Translated by Andreea Teodorescu-Colciu / 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. 
