Make the World Look Like You

Florina Hegedüs
Dishevelled, tireless, Răducu ran up and down the street everyday and waved two large sheets of newspaper while singing in a loud voice: I am a birdie too, I am a birdie too. In front of Irinuca's house, he looked at the birdcage in the tree, where a downcast titmouse lived; not a single movement, not a single door opening. He sighed, and then romped around, singing in a loud voice. He knew what to do. He drew a bird cage with two titmice in iton a white sheet of paper and taped it to her window. He waited. Behind the curtain, Irinuca, who was confined to her home due to the measles, smiled. A winged smile.

Titela Durnea
He huddles under the blanket and keeps murmuring Angel of God. The male voice coming from the next room reaches a crescendo, hits the wall, invading the small head framed by golden curls. Then he hears the silent crying, interrupted only by sobs. He turns on the flashlight. The pencils keep him company. He begins to draw. The crying eventually stops, when the door slams shut. In the morning, his mother finds him holding his drawing to his chest. From the sheet of paper, a man and a woman look at her as they carry the sun on their shoulders. From one corner, a tree stretches its branches towards them.

Fabiola Stoi
When we first got here, in the west, we only had our hope chests from the wedding and some news about the region. We built the house with wood beams and then the children were born. Days went by fast, and so did our lives, with their ups and downs. Later, we found out that three days away by cart was Ion's land. He had also come by sea from Bucovina a long time ago, he was now living with an indigenous woman and they had a quiverful of children. Reproduce yourselves and fill this land at the end of the world - this is how Ion sent his children into the world. And a couple of them landed in our yard as well.

(Translated by Valentina Mihai / 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 August 2023, the group has 11,680 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.