His stomach was churning. He had never been on that street before and the light of the lampposts made him shiver. He crawled more than he walked towards one of the shop windows. He didn't even care what girl was there. He only desired to see a living body, to touch it. He was sick of the online, of isolation, of the people's fear of touching each other. It felt like ages since he last touched a body. How much? 70 euros. Here. What are you doing? Aren't you coming in? Not yet. He was breathing heavily and he felt like crying. Then she took his hand. For starters, you can just look at me.
(Translated by Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș / 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 December 2022, the group has 9,880 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. 
