My buddy Vlad decided last month to break up with his girlfriend. They had been together for four years and thing seemed to be doing good between them. So I was left wondering. When we were out for a beer I asked him what was going on. You know, I want kids, he said to me. And she didn't? On the contrary, she wants kids as well. Quite passionately. Then, what is the problem, I asked. The problem is that she doesn't know how to swim. She has like a true phobia of water. In this circumstance, do tell me, how could I ever let my kids go to the seaside alone with her?
(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. 
