I slowly descend the steps of the library. I see him: skinny, heavily perfumed, with an expensive and much too tight suit. He says to me: What are you doing, little boss? Still reading? Is this paying the bills? I didn't feel like going to school anymore, the old man is a boss in the county, we have big businesses. Come on, I'm in a hurry, I have a combination. He shows me, with a careless gesture, a long black car. A big guy is waiting next to it. Kiss you, we will talk. I smile. I didn't get to say anything. He did. I zip up my thin jacket. I have a book in my hand. Poems, by Marin Sorescu.
(Translated by Andreea Denisa Dinu / 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 April 2023, the group has 11,000 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. 
