Exactly 30 seconds after the spotlights go off, I throw the apron. Another season has passed in which I perfectly played the role of the impossible, arrogant juror, eternally dissatisfied with the performance of the contestants and their terrible dishes. Full of myself, I head to the airport, from where I will go on vacation with my girlfriend. I feel elated when I see my face on a huge billboard, recommending my recipe for
pleurotusostreatus in vinegar. I can't believe how much television has taught me. It has yet to teach me a lesson. Cooking.
(Translated by Medeea Alexandra Stan / 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. 
