I chose the spot and started building. Passers-by watched with disinterest at first, then stopped, bewildered, until a crowd formed. They were not leaving anymore, took turns sleeping and when one of them woke up, the others described to them what they missed. They had been silent, until one day when a child got closer: Why do you wall yourself up inside? I'm looking for God, I said, placing stone upon stone. When I saw the last ray of sunlight above, I placed the vault key. The church was ready, the people went in and I, the mason, left. I hadn't found Him.
(Translated by Diana Pașcanu / 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. 
