He learned his lesson, got a longer stick. Get lost, go to hell, you gruff. He looks around. He empties the trash, rolls up his sleeves and begins. He carefully opens up the bag as if opening a present. He chews loudly with pleasure, fishes a sardine with his fingernail and cuts it into the can. Salty. He drinks fizzling beer and burps. He spreads a crumpled poster with his hand. Nothing about love, Saturday, Cinema Dacia. Down, in the corner, scribbled with a pen I waited for you like a fool and you didn't come, you're a whore. He grins. He didn't forget how to read.
(Translated by Tania Diniță / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 June 2023, the group has 11,430 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. 
