Remorses

Carmen Tot
I should, he said, when I write a book, build a bridge into it from which I can jump off at the end. To get rid of the guilt of having confined life to a momentary idea, which tomorrow changes. I understand your remorse, writer, sometimes I too wish that, beyond the image of a silly Alice falling down the rabbit hole, the world would know what I have become. But, you see, the character in the second you imagined me is no longer me, not for a long time. And, hell, I really feel insanely good that I wrote the rest of the story without you.

Ana Călin
I didn't exclusively breastfeed you or hold you when you cried. I didn't read bedtime stories. I didn't sit through kindergarten to fit you in, and I didn't chase after the best teacher at school. I didn't sign you up for German, basketball and debate classes, you didn't do tutoring, and I didn't wait for you with tears in my eyes when you came out of the national assessment. You didn't ask me for advice about girls and money for Vama Veche^[1]. I didn't tell you, don't hook up with that blonde, she'll eat your soul. I was scared and didn't take the chance. Florentina Ghițescu
They were just two kids, they didn't know anything about love, but all their friends bragged that they had crossed that threshold. They thought they were in love. My parents are away in the countryside and if you want, you can come to my place. His room was wallpapered with footballers' faces. She knew nothing about the game. Even the bed linen had balls on it. He sat down on the desk chair. Would you like a glass of water? No. Want to watch a movie? Yes. They kept looking and found an adventure movie. Wouldn't you rather just be friends? Her face lit up.

(Translated by Adrian-George Ilinca / 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.