I don't want to have a different running route. Today, I have to tame the beast that has been barking at me for a year, always at the same street corner. I put on my tracksuit, sneakers, and slip some ham into my pocket, then I head out. No animal can resist such a culinary temptation. I move away from home, pass by the park, and approach the infamous corner. Fear knots in my stomach. Empty. No dog in sight. I breathe in freedom, the knot unravels into a thousand threads. But where did it go? Now, with the ham hidden in my pocket, I desperately look for it in the world.
(Translated by Lucia-Alexandra Brînaru-Mitrofan / 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. 
