Once upon a time there was a king with an ego that needed continuous validation - so the king would constantly ask his daughters how much they love him. On the Xth iteration, the oldest thought about it and said: like saffron, the most expensive of spices. The middle child went further: like caviar, father, there's nothing more refined and precious than that. The last time this happened, the youngest got exiled because she tried to be smart witht the whole salt thing. This time, another wicked demon irked her on: like pepper, father. This is what connects us, you've got a zesty personality, and I've got a zesty personality.
(Translated by Constantin Istrate / 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. 
