I crossed the ocean, travelled for 24 hours, changed airplanes, trains, cars, worlds. I'm almost home now as the bus runs in a hurry. The highway runs backwards, and so do the streetlamps, trees, houses and towns. They run back in a frenzy as if something bad awaits ahead. I close my eyes. The bus stops. Dammit, there are only kids in here. Solemn kids carrying suitcases. I slip out amongst them. Mum waits for me at the gate. I wrap my arms tightly around her leg. She tousles my hair, then takes me up in her arms and gives me a kiss.
(temă în parteneriat cu
Ideo Ideis, 2022)
(Translated by Carla Bețianu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 August 2022, the group has 9,000 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. 
