Grandma's voice wakes him from his peaceful sleep. Oh, I dreamt. Curled up in the blanket, he sighs a long sigh. He can smell her sweet bread and gingerbread. He reaches out his hands to search for his sheep. He wants to hold it to his chest, like he does when he's sad. He can't find it anywhere. Mamaaa. My darling, he hears Mama shouting. He gets out of bed, goes into the kitchen. Beside the table full of packages and candles, Mom is crying with his picture and his sheep in her hand. Come to grandma, sweetie. You're going to comfort Mummy too, grandma whispers softly, pointing to the sheep.
(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. 
