And now what do we tell the press, for God's sake? National hero, Serghei Petrovici, gave his life for the country. Jesus Christ, the moron had to fall right into the wine vat out of all places. We move him. Where? His lungs are filled with grape must. If only he had drowned in the cesspool. Just an obituary then? I don't know. People will ask questions. Exactly. We'll spread the word that lately he got into the habit of drinking himself to oblivion and he died in a coma. Screw him, we'll slander him. It's our time to shine, Arcadi Fedorovici. The time of simple and honest people.
(Translated by Alin Sescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected 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. 
