The rack groans under the pile of shirts. What a pompous ass. He left them here to remind me of his delight in color and promise. I tear them to pieces with the rage of a hounded animal. Once, those sweet words had kept me warm. But the cold of truth is too harsh and now I am shaking spasmodically. A sip of brandy will help me resist. Forget. Yes, forgetting is my cure. I ward off the chill with a shawl made of torn pieces. Warmth embraces my neck, fleetingly kissed by his colours, by his promises.
(Translated by Cristina-Nicoleta Costache (Mircea) / 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. 
