Who is that short man who runs in the cornfield and pants and whose wrinkles paint a great restlessness on his face? Who is the girl that accompanies him, pedalling from the back of the yellow framed bicycle, her hair blowing in the wind and her heart clenched in fear of the dogs? Why does he look at her with love, why is she no longer afraid, why do their faces turn bright after a single glance beneath the tall cobs? Who are they? What purpose do their shadows serve on the sun-scorched earth, and why does his fade?
(Translated by Lenuța Bejenaru / 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. 
