The rooster's crowing always found him in the choir, praying and reading diptychs. Twenty years ago, after losing his wife, he chose the monastic life. His body was always wrapped in her shadow: in worship, at Mass, at vespers, in the light of the candles. That was their deal, he was paying his ticket for the grand reunion. This morning, his purple lips close for a kiss. In his open eyes you could see her image: cheeks red as berries, ripe breasts and a white pleated dress. Inside his pupils, a weeding was taking place.
(Translated by Ioana Busuioc / 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 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. 
