That summer we felt like we were turning into stagnant-water falls and we could hardly peel off from the bedsheets that had become bandages. We acted like bluebirds under the cold water shower, out of which there was warm water flowing. We used baby powder for the scalded parts of our bodies and waddled to the kitchen, from where we got the frozen bags of spinach and cauliflower and moaned in pleasure feeling their cold diaphanous touch. The braised Brussels sprouts under the breasts and testicles were incredible. With salt and pepper.
(Translated by Bianca-Andreea Rîmboacă / 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. 
