The city lags behind, colorful and yet so gray. I increase the cadence of my steps. Their tracks still call to me, burned by the heat of the abandoned asphalt. I shake my arms from the coldness seeping from the naked blocks, sweating like a sinful body. I'm tired of breathing in the smell of plastic and garbage. Of believing in civilization. I run after the soul hidden in the chest longing for AIR. Catching the sunrise. The light. I lie in the green grass. Palms dig in the earth. I wash my face with fresh earth. I breathe. I worship.
(Translated by Laura-Elena Dobrin / 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. 
