She clearly told me we were to meet on Tuesday, at five o'clock, in front of the store. Today is Tuesday, and I've been waiting for her for two hours. I have memorized all the hats in the window, placed on the heads of the rigid mannequins. I have the strange feeling that I am gossiping in a language known only to them. I check my phone. No message. I don't want to walk into an empty house anymore. Too empty. It's eight o'clock. The saleswoman closes the shop and comes towards me smiling. You've waited enough, shall we go for a drink? I went with her. What a woman, what nerve. Hats off.
(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. 
