It was getting dark and cold. He wrapped her in a wool blanket and carefully took her glasses off, slowly touching her palm. He would have played those little veins pulsating underneath her fair skin, like a violin all night long. They have been childhood friends, then lovers and since that YES, partners for the rest of their lives. People admire them for their loyalty and their care for one another. Their magic? They've never knocked at the door leading on the Other Side. They have everything right Here. It's getting late. The kettle's boiling. The steam's going to the roof. It smells of linden flowers. And of Heaven.
(Translated by Ioana Busuioc / 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 February 2023, the group has 10,500 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. 
