Old Gligor sprinkled tobacco on the torn newspaper, moistened it and pressedits edges. He lit it with a twig from the stove. Why on earth are you yapping like that, he said and coughed heavily. He put the wood in the chimney and went out to see what the fuss was about. Something was going onacross the board. It's probably some beast, he said to himself and proceeded to chase it away. First through the bushes, then past the mulberry trees, past the tall grass and into the field. He turned his head and was no longer able to see the house. It was pitch dark and the stars were close. He reached out and touched one.
(Translated by Oana Ionescu / 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. 
