I stop the car on the side of the road and take a pick-up lady. I try to make her feel comfortable and safe. Conversations slowly take shape. I learn that she likes to write poetry and is going to visit some of her former colleagues. At one point, there is a longing silence. I stop the car. We love each other like a couple of lunatics in the back seat. After dropping her off in the city centre, I sit on a terrace and have a coffee. When I get home, I go into the living room. My wife is eating almond cake with the pick-up lady.
(Translated by Luciana-Maria Buruiană / 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. 
