Rack and Ruin

Lucian Domșa
His earthy face, with its skin clinging to the bones, lay beneath a blanket of sun-dust sifted through the branches. The pain in his thigh was gnawing at his brain. He lay stretched out on a stretcher, under the gentle breeze of the wind. The birds had ceased their singing, and all that could be heard around were moans. Just a day ago, he had been in a truck with twenty soldiers from the platoon. They were supposed to reach a village where the German army had stored ammunition in a former mansion. They had clear orders to demolish the building at any cost.

Gheorghiță Mircea
When they opened the grave, the two of them didn't know what would follow. Unveiled, we were seeing the blue sky again, the village being deserted, the thieves would loot in broad daylight. It's all turned to dust, along with the suit, just a pair of rubber boots under the head, and a bottle, said Văsuț. Lody, the one with the burnt face, tugged at his sleeve. Look, only the year of birth, we'd better leave. It was too late, a sudden gust of wind stirred up the dust, and it entered their lungs deeply, soothing them pleasantly. They suddenly became thirsty and began to drink, how the bottle got up there, was not their concern anymore.

Mirela A. Nica
You raised me with Elena Farago's poems. You taught me to recite, not just with intonation but also with understanding. And the prayers, all from you. Your stories always had a scientific-religious undertone. I remember how you explained to me why a frog doesn't smell bad when it decays. Because it helped the Virgin Mary cross the river with the Child. When I asked you where you were going, you answered, We rise from ash and to the ashes we shall return. But it wasn't true, grandma, because we are made of stardust and to stardust we shall return.

(Translated by Alin-Marian Mărgescu / 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.