He took a sip of spirit to gain the courage to go to the priest's house. It was night and the sky was the only witness of the sacrament that was unfolding for the last couple of days. Father, it's me, Ilie. The priest came out in a hurry, with a coat around his shoulders. What is it, Ilie? Come here, I want to confess. Now, in the middle of the night? Yes, now. Or else I'll lose my mind. Father, I can see spirits. Oh, go home, man. Should I be scared, father? Don't be scared, boy, you should be happy, you have good eyes. Good, good, but I will pluck them out if this keeps at it.
(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. 
