She's been stuck between worlds for a while. Undefined border drawn by cracks that deepened every time she took a step. She could not define it in order to explain it, but when the heel touched the floor, the darkness opened and her recovery was harder each time. In the world outside her mind, she was trying to smile. In the world inside her mind, she would punch into glass windows that made her bleed. With no effect on those on the other side. Those who are also stuck between worlds. Medication did not help her.
(Translated by Monica-Andreea Gaman / 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. 
