What are you playing, asked the unknown kid who came to play with them, in front of the apartment building. Country, country, we want soldiers. Who makes the teams? Let's call Atieț, to split us, he's older. The big guy started: how-many-countries-are-there-in-the-block / when-I-give-the-word-you-halt. But Polonița ruined their game: guys, I'm leaving to study for history. Gretel jumped over the next-door wall; Sofia was pulling on her own pigtails until one kid who was much better than her at English yelled at her:
go home, your mom made you polenta. Ilenuța was left alone with the two boys: now let me see how will you split me.
(Translated by Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș / 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. 
