What good would immortality be, God? I'm aimlessly wondering through crowds and hearing people's thoughts. They don't shut up even when they do shut up. It's a continuous back and forth of noises that darken my mind. Ever since you brought me back on Earth, I can't find my purpose without her. Sometimes I would hear her cry and start running in whichever direction the wind brings raindrops closer. Through her absence, you condemned me to endless solitude. If there's no more life for her to spare, then I beg you, God, let me caress her face once more and in exchange I promise to hold your whole Universe on my shoulders.
(Translated by Cristina-Bianca Ion / 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. 
