I keep fluttering and creeping inside people, caressing what I find inside there. I like hearts best, they purr like silly kittens, and their warm steam propels me to their eyes, where I draw fireflies. On the winding way up, up their throats, I untie the knots I encounter, tickle vocal cords, and when laughter shakes me I anchor myself to cervical steps and thoughts. At night I come out through their ears and, smeared by dreams, I plunge into the purifying pyre. They call me Phoenix, but I'm just an ember.
(Translated by Bianca-Maria Marinescu / 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. 
