We don't burn witches at the stake no more. We no longer raise children in caves. We don't beat them anymore. Thieves are no longer impaled. Poor people can go to school and even become successful. We got diapers, washing machines, tampons, menstrual cups, vacuum cleaners and tractors. Women can be physicists, politicians, doctors, drivers, men, they can even win Noble prizes. We are past the Middle Ages. I think we overcame hell. Now we are in purgatory. When will we turn this world into heaven I wonder?
(Translated by Alin Sescu / 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. 
