Where exactly is he? Between a tangible here and a hypothetical beyond, between the hope of futility and the disappointment of hedonism, between the smoldering cauldrons of purification and the hanging gardens of deceptive apples. But of course, that's not what you're looking for. This realm is the last stop where only one-way trains go, loaded with people full of regrets and metaphysical flatulence. It's possible you might not even realize you're in this vacuumed void and yet still feel the melancholy of the end. It's possible, isn't it?
(Translated by Lorina Xiaoyu Hou / 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. 
