Crouched in amniotic fluid, I was counting seconds in my heartbeat. I was silent most of the time. Sometimes, I smiled. When the being on the other side would shade me with a book or take me to the art gallery. I cried only once. He rarely came. I'd heard him swear or humiliate her. He then shouted: take it off. Clothes and tears fell. I felt the punch with all my being. It didn't hurt. I was strong. For her. The next day, she took me away. Now, lying in the grass, we're gazing up at the sky. Her palm is caressing me. She's singing
La dolce vita.
(Translated by Oana Ionescu / 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 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. 
