You either Have It or You Don't

Costi Gălățanu
On Monday, you don't have the right state of mind for it today. On Tuesday, you have a horrible migraine. On Wednesday, you can't, you have to wake up very early. Thursday, you have a stomach ache. On Friday, you can't, because you just ate and you have gas. On Saturday, you have problems at work and you don't think about it. On Sunday, you can't, you have to go to the doctor in the morning. Monday, what bad luck, you're in the mood, but you have your monthlies^[1]. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, same shit, different day. On Saturday, you can't, because the baby is sleeping in the living room and could hear us. Sunday, man, are you really that obsessed?
Ionuț Tuhoarcă
It was a deformed mixture of silent cleverness and gross stupidity. The stench of chlorine, bitter cigarettes and cheap drinks was horrible. He made a living cleaning the toilets. He played tiny amounts on roulette. He rolled the dice with borrowed money. He read out of interest. He beat everyone in chess with his weapons. He was crying over cartoons. He had a mistress. He occasionally lost her to poker. His wife had left him long for a worse man. The uncle that life did not want. Until one day when he said. Stop.
 
 Andrei Lămureanu
One-two, two-three, slowly pulsed a fado^[1], and spring was far away. Coffee, half drunk, life the same. Lost in thoughts, he lit a cigarette. A suicidal explosion of white smoke, mixed with gloomy definitions. The dirty glass mirrored his wrinkles, coagulated in an prematurely aged smile. In the alley, a drunk was talking loudly on the phone. People with simple souls speak loudly, he thought. You have someone, you are happy, the drunken broke the morning silence. You have no one, you die sick and alone. Poor man, he debated, do you have someone or don't you?
(Translated by Corina-Alexandra Belu / 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 July 2023, the group has 11,540 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.