She usually floated, apathetic even when she caressed my forehead, but today I felt she was under the pressure of turmoil. We were waiting for many guests who eventually came, all dressed in silver, only me and mum were dressed in royal blue.We were celebrating my 18th birthday. Mom whispered to me, your dad is coming as well, when the fireworks start. I didn't know him and I was waiting for him as if he were a big present. In the evening, the lights turned off and sparks came through the window, popping in dozens of colors. I barged happily into the yard, but it was just an UFO on the grass in front of the house.
(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / 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. 
