1595. The Turks are near the borders, and they have gone out to plunder and pillage. The boyars and young servants are in the army, at Călugăreni, at Mihai's call. I have retired, I have served the country enough so far. I have a special knight's pension, ten golden coins, and a "leek still green". I opened an inn, "The Merry Leek", here, on the outskirts of Craiova. The young ladies from the country often come to the inn, for the wine, for the dishes, for me. Life goes on and in times of war, basic needs remain alive. I'll go wash up now, today I'm waiting for Mrs. Stanca.
(Translated by Elena Patricia Măroiu / 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. 
