It was cold. The hood tightened on his face prevented him from shouting. "Let's stop for a bit" he whispered to the Sherpa. The man put down his backpack and breathed somewhat relieved. He knew it was just an illusion. Fleeting. They caught their breath. They started up again. Upwards. Higher and higher. The air no longer sufficed. They breathed on schedule. Taking turns. "Let's rest a bit" he said. Then she appeared. Everything was frozen and she came with skates. They danced as much as they could, then she wanted to leave. But not alone. One of them had to accompany her. It was cold.
(Translated by Beatrice-Ioana Huruială / 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. 
