Mom, can we take a picture with the monkey? It's too expensive, we can't afford it. And it might have fleas. What about the camel? It's even more expensive. What if the photographer doesn't drop by tomorrow to bring the photos? What if it rains? The child was saddened seeing how every refusal of his mother's was justified. I'll get you some hake with French fries for 2 dollars. And a 50 cent doughnut. The child carefully ate the fish as to not ruin it's skeleton. Then he submerged it underwater in the sea. I hope you'll drop by tomorrow. You're much better than a 3 dollar photo. He retreated under the willow tree with his doughnut. Warm, powdered with sugar.
(Translated by Marta Fulga / 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. 
