Grandpa asks me if I want to raid the fields. He's got plenty of corn, but he says stolen corn tastes better. Others steal from him as well, I don't think God's going to bring up his corn thief record on Judgement Day. I open my eyes, count his breaths, but stop when I realize I'm counting down. The last drop of sweat trickles at the same time as the tear in my eye. I've buried him among the cobs, I've dressed the scarecrow in his clothes. So that I can still see him when I pass by.
(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. 
