Silence had been her shield for years. She tried to say it only once during confession. With the mind of a child, she thought it to be a sin. Her sin. The priest didn't understand a word. Then Ana appeared, and the scene was coming back in
flashbacks. Children laughing in the sun, a neighbouring boy, a touch that burned. A wave of nausea was stuck in her throat. Hey, what is going on with that man alone near the playground. Let's leave, Ana. I am a helicopter, she said to herself while pulling the child by the hand. Or an umbrella. I wonder how many umbrellas like me go to therapy.
(Translated by Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș / 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. 
