I haven't been to the sea since I was a child, that's why, on the first day, I continued what I had started then: a sandcastle. Soon, a little girl picking shells stopped next to me, then a few little boys, watching intently. It was a perfect castle. When it was done, I stepped away to admire my creation, and then the children subtly took over. Then, without a sign, they pounced, crashing and shattering the sandcastle of adulthood into the sea. Go away, you hideousness, we still have time until you. Then they ran off to play.
(Translated by Ana-Maria Mușetescu / 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. 
