Lambada

Iulia Biro
The mayor had brought Asians into the village to work the land. The people were fuming. They were going to gather at the Community Centre today to solve the situation about to erupt. The hall was echoing with whistles and stomping. Quiet, said the mayor. I told you that if you didn't go out to work, I would bring in people to do it. Diligence isn't your greatest attribute, is it? They're non-Romanians ruining our land and our ancestral language which we fought to preserve, shouted the deputy mayor. Then, addressing her daughters: Lambada, Izaura, let's go home, girls, this guy called us lazy.

Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
We were indulging in the dullness of the days. Empty canvas bags, a decorous sarafan[1], hunger and cold. We then woke up in a dazzling and flamboyant world: jeans and bikini, shiny packages, condoms, coloured television. Yesterday and today are only separated by a broad blood stain in the blotting snow. Look what it says here, my aunt tells my dad. They weren't shot, they actually fled to Brazil. Hmm, Brazil, I wonder. That's where that song that everyone is dancing to comes from. The blood stain becomes increasingly smaller and then vanishes.
Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
I have a dwarf. There are many others of his kind, but this one's the battiest. He talks to himself at home. He bursts into laughter when he's upset and cries when he's happy. It gets better at night. He kisses the flight of my dream so I don't forget it. He knows he comes from a long time ago and is headed towards wherever, but he can't find a place to rest for today. He's been upset for two days now. He's dancing, all by himself, and he's screaming that he wants a partner. Look, he's swinging on my smile. He knows it tickles me and I can't resist him. Actually, don't you have a dwarf that I could borrow to dance with mine? Specifically, he wants to try the lambada.

(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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.