The summer holiday was long, so long, that towards the end of it I almost forgot how to write. Prepping for the next school term would inevitably begin on September 1st, when my mother would give me an assignment to write a birthday card to my grandmother in the country. The content was always the same. My mother used to read it and for a long time I didn't understand why she laughed out loud every time. I used to write like this: Dear grandmother, I wish you a happy birthday and every success in your autumn farm work. In the top left corner, I drew a pretty tricolour.
(Translated by Alina-Dorina Nicolae / 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 November 2022, the group has 9,580 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. 
