I died. I throw a pebble in the middle of the lake and each circle invites me into the hour of my life. Pic. Salt water from eyes that loved me falls over my dead body. Pic. I run hand in hand with grandma through the summer rain and we sing the song for snails. Pic. I grab my nose and sink into the bathtub, and Daddy's screams drown out and Mama seems to laugh. Pic. I reach out to touch a frightened octopus. Pic. What's the wave as it passes. Woodpecker. Life is pink in my mother's womb, where two hearts race to the start of life.
(Translated by Luciana-Maria Buruiană / 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. 
