The Little Girl Who Did Not Like Homework

Dan Banu
She tried making an L, but she wasn't in the mood and the pen glided over the paper by itself. It didn't look like an L, but like a string. The pen glided over and over again. She scraped the paper with her nail and she tore the three strings away. She then drew three O's. But they rather looked like balloons. She tied the balloons with the strings and hung them by the window. The house was slowly lifted to the sky. She wasn't scared. But the two mice started nervously moving around. She drew a cookie. The mice ate the cookie, then the strings. The house loudly fell back to the ground. The page was filled with L's and O's.

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
It's normal to enjoy jumping on the trampoline more than reading, but reading also has its charm. Mom is here. First we read, then we jump together. If some of the words seem difficult to you, allow yourself to be wrong. I am also wrong quite often and that's okay. You don't have to be the best in your class. You are yourself to me, no matter how good you do in school. No, mom didn't grow up like that. She had to be the best. One day she let herself be wrong and she learned from her mistakes. I only want you to not give up.

Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
The courtyard was overgrowing with weeds. Naked children are running around like some crazy Cupids. Their shouting disturbs the quiet of the morning. Nicu is smoking in the doorway. He gets up, confused. Good morning. Where is Mia? I don't know, somewhere around the house. There are some geese in the first room. She was in the second room, crouched near the clay fireplace. Charcoal-black eyes, messy curls. Where is the backpack? She pulls it from under the bed and she puts it on her back. The little girl's hand finds a nest inside the fairy's hand, just like a little bird. The castle is waiting for them across the road. With letters, with numbers, with stories.

(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / 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 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.