Pricop is lifting dumbbells. Vera patches a sock and says: Did you know that Gilda, the neighbor on 4, is pregnant? It's a miracle, at age 49. Pricop puts down the dumbbell, runs to his notebook, and reads: 3rd Mar, Gil, no con, terrific. Ah, she said she was at menopause, Pricop thinks. The doorbell rings. Vera opens it. It's Ilie, Gilda's husband. Sure, come in, we're neighbors, we help one other. Prichi, I'll leave you to it, you're the gynecologist in this house. Ilie, with his hat in his hands, says: Mr. Pricop, I haven't done it anymore, you know, with Gilda, and today I found out she's pregnant. Could it be from the prayers?
(Translated by Ana-Maria Batog / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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. 
