How to Find Your Soulmate

Titela Durnea
 It's unbearable hot. There comes the tram-train. I breath a sight of relieve. It's a new model with conditional air. I quickly look at the travellers. It's not the right one. I get off at the first station. I run to catch the no 23 tram-train, towards the central square. There were just a few old women inside, with raffia bags, quarrel and demolished faces. I put my hope in the 8 direction that goes towards the airport. I go there and come back a few times. I have already sweated. I'm going home to change my blouse. It must appear. I haven't gave my salary for two months to the gipsy in the park for nothing. It worked for Dora.

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
She was about 40 and she was going to her first date. May you never find your love and get sick if you abandon your mother. This is what your future husband wrote for you, her mother told her when she was a kid. And every time she went on a date, she got sick. I will die without you. Nothing will be left if you leave me. It didn't matter and she left anyway. It started to rain, a car sprayed her with mud, the socks ripped. She saw him from far away. He was wearing a suit, a shirt and turned to run. He got closer to her, took her hand and stepped on the first big puddle. They smiled to each other. At home, mother was respecting her promise. For the first time.

Ana Vlad
It suddenly appeared in the middle of the yard. A red with white dots, gorgeous hat was covering her long black hair. I started laughing, she looked like a mushroom. I'm a beginner, she apologized nervously, trying to make herself more visible from under the hat that nearly covered all of her face. I offered to help her but I made it more difficult for her. You better go make some tea, she told me, giving me a deep sight of a black eye and a blue eye. Sure, I answered, blinking with emotion. One blue eye and another black.

(Translated by Iuliana Mocanu / 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.