I stood in front of the Gate, looking on with uncertainty. The seraphs were caught in a dance, chanting the hymn of the champion, enjoying eternity. A semitransparent figure was blocking the entrance, slowly caressing the clouds. You've atoned for the sin of not loving yourself they uttered, with a throaty voice. You are redeemed. You will pass to the other side. But first, you will return among them. You've won the right to choose: 100 years of solitude, or a year of love. I looked inside myself, stunned: right next to my heart, a spark was about to become a flame. Behind me, the seraphs smiled.
(Translated by Bianca Ioana Prisecaru / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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. 
