I was silently gazing into the empty pantry. Learn how to do everything around the house sweetie, my grandma would tell me when she was still alive. Now I was getting ready to store my shoes in it. The memories of the homemade jars filled with love tore into me with each box set upon the shelves. My mouth was watering and my eyes were filled with tears, so I went to the nearest store while calling home. Mom, how did grandma make that pickled cauliflower? Why, honey? What's wrong? I'll make some for you. No, I want to learn. For my daughter, so grandma can see that we're thinking of her.
(Translated by Bianca-Maria Ciucașu / 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. 
