She wiped away his tears and hurried out. Sje hurried through the storm. Leaves, mud, sadness - all clung to her, held on tight. The drips though dampened her clothes and made her heart sink. She stopped under a walnut tree at the end of the street. With her hands sunk in her pockets, she closed her eyes and thought of the gingerbread split in half, of yesterday's amazing coffee. They'd had their moments. The memory of the fireplace, the hug, the soft kiss, all warmed her heart and forgave him. She opened her eyes and continued on her way. Alone.
(Translated by Andreea-Iulia Ciucă / 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. 
