When the bells would start ringing, Father Stelicăwould jump from the table where we played poker. Shit, one more dead bloke, he would say. He would pull his cassock right over his jeans, grab a random icon from the wall, cross himself, and go into the village to identify the dead. He would return with wine or tzuica every single time. Have some too, you lucky dogs, was his favourite joke. And he'd always make this one when we played: Four of a kind. Four bearded guys - me included!In the evening, Stelică would again go on an expedition after some drink and food. I'm going to read his graveside prayers, he would tell us.
(Translated by Ecaterina Bucovanu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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. 
