I'm calling you, but you're not answering. I just want to say Happy Birthday, honey. I actually just want to hear your voice. It would be your gift to me on your birthday. But you're not answering. But really, why would you make me a gift on your birthday. I'm sitting on the beach, my wife is bringing me two shells from the water, the kid calls for me to build sand castles, I'm calling, you're not answering. Twenty years later, I would still call again, but it's not like a book or a movie. Life is different. Or it isn't anymore. After twenty years, I stand before your cross. Happy birthday, darling, wherever you are.
(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. 
