Another late morning in which I curse this shitty job of mine. I trade night shifts for a living. The same way home, with my earplugs in, counting my steps and peeking at the flower ladies arranging their stuff on the stand. 2.148 steps until I reach that alleyway which smells of urine and crushed dreams. I cover my nostrils, spit on the right wall and I can't help but notice that Danny+Simy does not equal love anymore. I step up my pace. 2.756 steps and I'm now rolling a cigarette. I see Anna on the balcony hanging the laundry.
(Translated by Georgiana Morozii / 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. 
