I have a phobia of small things. My boyfriend knows it. He tried to propose to me three times. In the Eiffel Tower, in the Leaning Tower of Pisa and in the Trompeților Tower, in Mediaș. I passed out every time. He has it, indeed, too small, I would tell myself. At dinner, he was full of bold gestures. He ordered dessert late in the night. He got down on his knees, handed me a blue dot on a circle and when I was about to collapse, a magnifying glass flew above the dot. I saw a sapphire. I took the magnifying glass and left. Now I have bigger expectations in life.
(Translated by Tania Diniță / 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 July 2022, the group has 8,750 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. 
