You'll see, woman, he will come this year. He won't. He will because he only has one mom. He doesn't. How can you tell for sure? How? Because he hasn't come for ten years. He will, this year, as you turn 70 years old. I'm going to the gate to wait for him. You have been always waiting and never understand that we are merely a burden. The night fell. He didn't come. You were right. He moved toward the door. Where do you go again, old man? Nowhere. Nonsense. He went out on the porch, lighting a cigarette. I do not matter, but you have to come for your mom, child. A tear slipped his palm, callous because of his trying to make him a respectable man.
(Translated by Alexandra Cica / 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. 
