They were sitting next to the water, under a willow that was stirring slightly in the afternoon wind. Ion was telling him stories from when he was a boy - some comical, others sad. Later, he turned to Vasile: your childhood, how was it? Perfect. Tell me about it, said Ion. Vasile hesitated for a moment, then answered: I have nothing to tell. How so? I don't remember anything worthy of mentioning. Then how come you say it was perfect? Because it brought me here, in this place where I don't yearn for anything that was. Through the ensuing silence, only the rippling water could be heard. It was summer.
(temă în parteneriat cu
Ideo Ideis, 2022)
(Translated by Constantin Istrate / 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. 
