I sit on cold stairs. Mom says I'll catch a cold. Rectangular chalk and juice cartons form the Earth's axis. Ștefan told me that orange cats come from Mars. He knows what he's talking about because his dad is an astronaut and right now he's gone on a secret mission. I like Ștefan. I walk on blue trails to my grandma. Grandma doesn't know who I am, but she lets me braid her hair. I close my eyes and hold her hand. I feel that I love her. Grandma's hand got cold. I don't open my eyes. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe I caught a cold.
(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. 
