I think I smoked. I mean, I don't know. I haven't smoked in months, but today I lit a cigarette and pulled more than half of it until I realized what I was doing. That's how I remember. But I have no physical trace. No smell of tobacco on my fingers, no burning on my throat. So I don't think I smoked. Unless I think about it... I think I smoked. I still have the feeling that I have given in to the desire I feel every day since I quit. Disappointment, in fact; I feel it clearly. Did I smoke without doing it?
(Translated by Andreea Theodora Drăgan / 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 May 2023, the group has 11,260 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. 
