I was sure that I didn't need anyone else and that I was enough for myself. I wandered between needs and desired for several years. In vain, the thirst was not quenched. I met him at a strange moment, he was resting on the sidewalk puffing on a cigarette. The blue uniform, stained with paint, caught my attention. Do you work in constructions? I asked him out of the blue, studying his stained fingernails. Yes, he replied with a bohemian air, while wiping his brow of dust and sweat. What a coincidence, me too. I'm good at putting up walls.
(Translated by Andreea Teodorescu-Colciu / 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. 
