She looked at me smiling. I looked around, and by the time I realized she was smiling at me, she was long gone. When I got to Lipscani, it started raining. I didn't have an umbrella, so I went into the first shop. I think you'd look good with this hat, she said. Surprised, I let her fit it on my head and looked in the mirror. It really looked good on me. We spent the whole afternoon together and towards evening I drove her home. She was still asleep when I left. It wasn't until I got to the office that I realized I'd forgotten my hat.
(Translated by Anca Cristina Georgiana Mihai / 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. 
