Adult life doesn't suit me at all, says a girl on the train to someone on the phone as she stares blankly out the window. Small clouds cover her forehead as it rests on the blue mountain ranges. I like to travel, to change places, she goes on, hugging the
Master and Margarita. I'll be back at some point, she promises, then the train enters the tunnel. At the end of it, no sign of the girl. Call me when you get there'shows up on your phone screen. You don't answer.You put on your glasses and read on from Bulgakov.
(Translated by Ana-Maria Batog / 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. 
