I leave the house smiling secretly. Mascara eyes, bright lipstick, a touch of perfume behind the ear. I have my hair down, I know he loves it. Close-fitting blouse, short skirt, long velcro boots. In the bus I sit in the back. At the next station he also gets on, not looking at me, but thinking about me. The afternoon finds us in bed, naked and full of love. I nestle into him as he strokes my hair. We stay like this for hours and in the evening I sneak out of his life. At home I fake a migraine. I had a rough day. Adultery? It's my religion.
(Translated by Diana Pașcanu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan / Edited 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 October 2022, the group has 9,400 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. 
