It was Tuesday when a Martian rang the doorbell. She was sad and in a state of neglect. He was scatterbrained. She made him a coffee and he promised her all the green on Mars. She asked him where he parked his UFO. He told her he didn't have an UFO, but that he would try harder so he could answer her question the next time. She went cold, like the last drop of coffee on his lips. He left confused, to his deserted Mars. She remained in neglect. Martians come and go, always come, always go.
(Translated by Florina Șamata / 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. 
