Yo, I can't deal with these people anymore. That sorry soprano had hardly got in and they gave her a solo in Aida. The flute player's brother has just graduated tenor. Is this up for discussion? Of course we are staging "The Phantom of the Opera" especially for him. Has the conductor's cousin finished the Conservatory? Well, then let's cast her as Carmen, right? I, for one, am sick and tired of hoping for justice. What did I do so wrong that you're taking it out on me like that? I'm just an old vampire, relegated to the elevator, cuz, well, all the good dressing rooms are already taken, right?
(Translated by Andreea Denisa Dinu / 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 January 2023, the group has 10,220 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. 
