He doesn't hesitate. He puts his mind to it. Tries to negotiate a bit with his hearth, as it sometimes went haywire, but eventually he does as it dictates. Rationality and sensibility balance each other and on major matters it judges with mathematical precision. Minor decisions don't trouble him at all. Whether he wears red or goes for black, it doesn't matter, these choices don't prevent the glaciers from melting or reduce energy bills. Today he's at peace because there's nothing else to choose. Today he'll put an end to it. Pills or razor blade?
(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. 
