I'm Micah. I am seven years old. I have a little sister, Carla, 2 years old and a brother, Dima, 17. My father taught me and Dima to fly when we were young. In his arms I spread my wings for the first time. He would throw me up to the sky and I would gather butterflies and put them on his lips with each landing. For a while now, Dima has been flying in his own world of blue beads. Mom's been crying ever since. Yesterday it was Dad's turn to fly. For the last time. He never came down. I'll fly for Carla, mom. I promise. Butterflies grow from the lips.
(Translated by Anca Maria Florea / 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. 
