It's early in the morning and steam floats towards the mountains. I run my hands over my face. I go down in the kitchen, spread some butter on two slices of bread and drink a cup of coffee. The butter slides down my throat. The table is made out of badly carved wood. A splinter cuts into my palm. I leave it there. I put on my raincoat and my wellingtons and I strap on a knife. I take the basket, the forest is full of mushrooms. I go out on the porch and down the stairs. It's early in the morning and steam floats towards the mountains. I run my hands over my face. No pain. I must eat first before I deal with splinter.
(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. 
