My mother did not want me, and the door of her heart stayed locked until she passed away. How could she give up on the slenderness of her own youth for dirty laundry and sleepless nights? She hired a doctor's assistant to get an abortion. Luckily, father found out, and if he had not, she would have been scarred for life. He wouldn't let her out of her sight. He looked out for her night and day until she gave birth to me. He bestowed me the key, and his door has never had a lock when it came to me. I am heading today to the locksmith's booth, found in the marketplace, keeping the ultrasound I took in my pocket. I need a duplicate; I will bring twins into this world.
(Translated by Roberta Ana-Maria Gulerez / 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. 
