I spent my entire childhood watching my mother prepare food in the kitchen. My father was very particular. The food had to be impeccable, not too hot and not too cold. Otherwise there would be hell to pay. Sometimes I'd watch her chop the carrots, listening to the music of the cutting board, inspired the aromas mixed in the pan. Mom, I'll never cook, I told her one day. I want to study, I want to study, to become an adult. I got pregnant in my second year of university. Now, each autumn, my pantry is full of pickled foods.
(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. 
