It was past midnight. Gheorghe stumbled up the stairs and made his way into the house. The door was locked. He started knocking and shouting for Ildiko. Where were you? said the woman's voice. You're drunk again, you cogniac-lover? The man kept pounding on the door. Open up, he roared. No come in. You lay on mat like an dog. You promised not drink no more. He threw his shoulder into the door. Open up, you damned Hungarian wench. The door held. Good night, the woman said, blowing out the lamp.
(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. 
