We took different paths. In your world I always felt uncultured, unable to decipher the mystery of knowledge. You aspired towards the absolute while I only aspirated the dust on your books. I used to lose you there every night. I invited you to brandy and a game of poker. With my cards. You sighed at the inconvenience, but accepted the challenge. You had so much to gain. Peace and future. I got a job on a ship. I'm Lucky 13. I'm wooing rich divorcees. They think I'm smart and cultured. Lucky me. They haven't read your books.
(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. 
