He opened the window. She loved hot weather. She loved to swim. Before the illness, before the surgery. What are you doing, Zara? I have swallowed the sun and I'm waiting for it to tan my soul. Maybe that's how this new heart will accept that it is mine. It knows. It knows, Zara. We're going out on a walk. He picked her up in his arms and put her in the wheelchair. A wrong movement made their lips touch. The first kiss. Delicate as a butterfly wing. Blood rushed to both of their cheeks and their timid hands withdrew in a hurry. They were breathing emotion. Even their eyes were reflecting rainbows. Let's go, my dear Tudor.
(Translated by Adelina-Maria Mănăilescu / 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. 
