When I feel the end I will dig a deep hole with my hands exhausted by pain and rest my frail, immature, undefined body in it. Then I will pray to the clouds to fog a melted wax and shelter me from the pride and spite of this world. I will seek comfort neither from the sun nor from the promised Eden, but I will be silent as I have been silent through 10 years of infusions and treatments in the hope of seeing my parents smile. But it is not meant to be. And starting tomorrow I'll let my nails grow in love.
(Translated by Andreea-Daniela Vasilache / 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. 
