I am 25 years old and weigh 40 kilograms. He told me I am old and fat and that the role belongs only to Svetlana. That ingrate, I gave him my virginity and my youth's innocence. He gave me scars and mistresses. With drops of water that have yet to dry on my frail body, I sit down at my bedroom table. I pick up the brushes with a feline's slowness and I start executing my masterpiece. One last touch up and I will be ready for the role of a lifetime. Today, trails of blood replaced the ink of newspapers. I am 25 years old and I am a criminal.
(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. 
