Around the mid \'70s, kids made firecrackers out of two bolts and a nut, red phosphorus from matches and a bag. The blast brought the brave scouts happiness, without the fear of being hurt by the metal bits broken off by the small projectile. Having an inkling of my future, even as a kid I aimed to do big things, such as my ϕ24 mega-firecracker, filled with enough phosphorus for 4 match boxes, which blew up near the sidewall of our house. Thunderous sound, great panic, dusty face. There was nothing left of the plastering. No comment on my punishment.
(Translated by Ioana Diana Sandu / 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. 
