I chose not to stay silent. I first raised a finger, then two, shyly, and ended up waving my hand in hopes that I, too, would be seen at last, would be heard. I was the class's taciturn pupil, the boy at the back, the one with large, square glasses, the target of all pranks during the breaks between classes, but not only. Though I was the only one with my hand up, it seemed like my years of silence had turned me into someone invisible. Irritated, Mrs. sees me. Go on, Costeluș. I muttered through my gritted teeth: Too late, trying to cover the stain on my pants.
(Translated by Ioana Ștefan / 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. 
