When I opened my eyes, a bright light called me to the window. I struggled to my feet because I was still asleep. I pressed my forehead against the window and tried to see where it was coming from. A luminous figure stood in my daughter's cradle. I ran downstairs. The silhouette was still there, and in my heart, I hoped it was my dad, that he hadn't really died. I couldn't get any closer, every step making the light disappear. Then I started screaming and everything disappeared. When I opened my eyes again, it was just darkness.
(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. 
