The Little Girl Who Did Not Like Homework

Mihaela Moisescu
The mom listened through the door. Her daughter was talking alone. She wanted to come in to see what was happening, but she stopped. I don't like the lessons so please write them yourself. You told me you knew how to write, that you finished first in your class. Can you help me? Congratulations. The mom suddenly entered the room and found the girl drawing on the floor. On the desk, the homework was done, but not in her handwriting. Who wrote the homework? A girl. A girl? She used to live in the house across the street, in that burned house. A gust of wind moved the curtain and the girl waved at somebody. You scared her and she left.

Lucian Domșa
Look at your son, Father, the priestess said while looking through the report card. A five in math, a six in Romanian, a ten in Physical Education. Each time I ask him, he says he has no homework. I wonder who he resembles. You, Father Agheasmie mumbled, while preoccupied with reading the newspaper. You wouldn't do your homework either. You used to copy my homework during the break. When I walked you home from school, you used to say that you won't go out into town with me because you had homework, but you were actually going to the disco with the party's first secretary's son.

Vero Anttheia Teodoru
She hugged her mom tight. She knew that there would be a time when she wouldn't be able to do that. The moments had mixed themselves up like some colorful balls in a bowl. She took a blue one in her hand and looked inside of it. A girl sitting on a chair at a table with a Russian textbook and a notebook in front of her. She doesn't like this language, but homework must be done. She doesn't understand anything. Come on, I will explain it to you one more time. I should tell you that I will give you all a test in two days. Yes, her mom was the teacher indeed. That was 40 years ago. The ball rolled away and disappeared the same way it appeared.

(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.