You either Have It or You Don't

Lucian Domșa
 The priest's wife burst into the room, slamming the door. Father Agheasmie snored, snuggled under the blanket. The woman winced at the stale smell of sweat, beer and tobacco inside. Several empty bottles lay overturned on the floor. She pulled back the curtains and opened the window, letting the cold outside air permeate the entire room. She approached the bed and shouted: Do you or do you not have a child with Corcodușa? The reverend flinched and slowly opened his eyes. What?, he stammered. She pulled aside the blanket and slapped him  

Cristina Crețu
It's Comrade Ceausescu's time. The boy wasn't handsome, he was fat and had bent legs, but his father was a somebody: a minister's driver. He smoked More cigarettes and, when drunk, he thought he was a Lord, and about us, young people from the countryside, he said we were class vassals. When he ran off into the world with his grandmother's neighbour's daughter, his mother came from the city spitting nails. The girl's mother explained to the lady over the fence, with her hand on her apron, simply and to the point: that's what she'd got, that's what she gave. The line circulated quickly in several villages.

Alexandra Cealera
My dear whatever, I'm writing this letter to tell you that I've had enough. You talk to me about marriage, you tell me I'm one of a kind, yes, I am an only child, loud and proud, then your little birds calls to tell you she wants more candy. You bring me flowers, but then you hit me with every petal. When you put on your romantic clothes and, believe me, they fit you so badly, I feel like I don't really have anyone, I have myself, and I don't know what to do with me. What have you got? Not even you, you're sharing yourself with all those little soulless creatures.

(Translated by Alina Bâznă / 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.