only as long as it takes. Or, better, as much as the law allows. Why do you need to shower twice a day? It's not like anyone's checking on you. Once a week is enough. Didn't your mother only bathe you on Saturdays? You're saying you feel dirty without a daily shower? Be glad you have a clean soul. Or don't you? Do you smell like sweat? Very well, you're alive. You wouldn't like to smell like formaldehyde, would you now? So, that's it: once a week. Not alone. No partner? Look one up on Tinder. Signed by: Your 50-gallon water boiler.
(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. 
