We met in high school. Right after college, we got married. Before we got to the altar, I wanted to make sure somehow that we would never be apart. In order not to lose me, I asked him to always hold my hand, wherever we went, wherever we were. For the rest of our lives. Until the end. After about five years, the love faded away somewhere along the way. I wanted to leave. He, for he had promised me, didn't let me. He took my hand in his and squeezed it even tighter. Now I die a little each day, holding his hand.
(Translated by Andreea Teodorescu-Colciu / 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. 
