It would forever stick in his mind. Like a song. In order to cleanse his guilt-ridden soul.If it hadn't been for the darkness and that damn pit. There's no greater pain than the loss of your own child. He burned the chair she had cradled her childhood on. The smell of her still lingered in the smoke that dissipated through the crack in the window. With hands drained of strength he made a mournful cross, muttering a Thy will be done, Lord. He swept the ashes, pushing a coal with the poker, then lay down beside her clothes and slept.
(Translated by Cătălina Colibaba / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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. 
