You're might not be that ugly, my dear and beloved Grigore. It's true, I've taken out those stupid contact lenses. I can see your nose as through a blur. Now it's not so stuffy. It's just big, and they tell me that's your charm. Your bald head glows in the lamplight. You grin and show your decayed teeth, but censor your smile in shame. You turn off the light and go to bed. You take off your boxers with a sigh. It's time to reveal your true beauty, dear and beloved Grigore.
(Translated by Adrian-George Ilinca / 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. 
