When he dedicated What's a woman to her, she didn't imagine that she would have to accept his mistresses. Later, when he painted her nude and realized that he saw her more beautiful than she could ever lie to herself she was, she even accepted his punches. That's the way artists are, cranky. Only he knew how to handle her, to hold her dreams in his hands, and then his fingers would scar any bruises. They both watched her body bend like a candle. Ever since he'd left her, she'd stared at the phone, still wishing she could love him one more time.
(Translated by Andreea Tobă / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by conf. dr. Daria Protopopescu / 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. 
