I went to nea Gică and he was doing something in the summer kitchen. I thought he was making pickles. Perfect. I would be finally learning how to. Then he told me the recipe. First, we needed blackberries. Many. Sweet ones. Ripe, black and fat. Then some sugar - just to keep it long and good. Then, total surprise, some brandy. Strong enough not to make a fool of yourself. It can be brandy or vodka. You put everything in a demi-glass and here comes the hard part: don't drink it for a few weeks. We'll drink some of it now. His record: one night. He fell asleep making it.
(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. 
