The morgue smelled like a slaughterhouse. The forensic pathologist wore a white plastic apron covered in blood. He made the handover report for the corpse. The cause of death was a trivial cardiorespiratory arrest. On the day of the funeral, I wandered as if I was without a head. A floating body on an air mass covered by the sobs of the relatives. Women, priest and church singers sang or gave gentle commands. Bring the coliva, light the candles. I could hear everything but I couldn't understand anything. I am wondering even now how they haven't buried me instead of an empty coffin.
(Translated by Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș / 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. 
