The butterfly touched the flower and it opened up with a sigh. Inside, Thumbelina was sleeping. And he stood by to keep a watch on her. He loved her, so he gifted her the biggest house in the world. No, they didn't live happily ever after. Thumbelina got lost inside the biggest house in the world. And she felt lonely. She went back inside the flower. She waited for him. A day. Two. Three. The bumblebee stood by her. He listened to her, pollinating her joys. He wasn't looking for anything. He didn't ask for something in return. He knew. He knew that a good home is made up of the right souls.
(Translated by Cristina-Bianca Ion / 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 March 2023, the group has 10,790 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, Luchian Abel, and Vlad Mușat. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)
Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale. 
