The fire burns over the mound. I feel the terror overtaking me and my body freezes. The storm is coming and I must make a decision quickly. I know it is there, I feel the treasure. It's calling for me. I'm the only one who can see the fire. I'm the only one to whom it shows itself. The flames are devilishly dancing on my father's grave. If I want the treasure, I'll have to profane it. What shall I do? A flash of lightning illuminates the cemetery and a shadow stretches me across the alleys. Two horns circle my head and I start screaming. Since that night, my hair has turned white. They call me Crazy Joe.
(Translated by Cosmina-Florentina Ciobanu / 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. 
