The demanding COME message had reignited my rebellious wish to say NO. My heart was still scarred, for she long tormented me, yet I went. I wanted to keep a nasty attitude, but I was so shocked I couldn't take my eyes off of her. And could it be, from all the cosmetic procedures she got, that she couldn't afford to smile not even once, so she wouldn't emphasize her old crow's feet? Her face was now smooth and I thought that the evil stepmother had finally been tamed. She seemed happy standing there, in her coffin, looked just like she always wished she would.
(Translated by Daniela-Andreea Gugescu / 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. 
