The current story focuses on old Étienne, former Alsatian general, current puppeteer. He used to make soldiers out of firwood, he had so much, he lived in the mountains. When he felt that his end was near, Étienne told himself that as a sign of appreciation he would make a doll in the image and likeness of his wife, great-grandmother Ottilia, Tilli, as he would have fondled her if he had not once been a so great general. Before making her eyes and mouth, she hiccupped and passed out. He was satisfied. The two Ottilias were strikingly alike.
(Translated by Angelica Ioana Curcan / 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 September 2022, the group has 9,250 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. 
