I enter the master clockmaker's shop, with the umbrella closed. Good afternoon, the master looks at me from behind his monocle, the smell of rosin floods my nostrils, the clock that shows 9 and 10 winks at me mischievously, I smile back, the one that shows 16 and 40 asks for attention, I ignore it. Young lady, are you leaving the umbrella for repairs? No, I came to leave it for good. It is useless to me. The water from the sky is very good for me. Young lady, you caught your umbrella in the door's threshold, can't you hear it screaming in pain? Ah, I'll leave that one for good too, it is from the past.
(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. 
