All Sails Up

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
The house was deserted. They said to go in and spend the night there for the sake of adventure. He lit a lantern. Don't be afraid, we'll play a little, Noah encouraged them. I have even a surprise for you too, he told them, pulling a carved wooden boat out of his backpack. Now close your eyes and imagine a storm. One like never before, which will swallow everything in its path. You can't breathe, because there's water everywhere. That's how they found them there. Nearly a month had passed, and the mud still hadn't dried, and they were covered in algae.

Clara Marinescu
My grandma was something else. Underneath her dressing gown which she was always doing the chores, she always wore the lacy red negligee she got from grandpa. Enigmatical used to tell me that only the unrepeatable gives a taste of life. I looked at her like she was God. Today she dusted with clean pieces of cloth. I watched spellbound as she often shook them out of the window, scattering particles of powder as golden as her eyes. And then she told me something I could not forget. That a house becomes a home when you can write I LOVE YOU on the furniture's dust. And I whispered to her: Grandma, stop shaking the webs.  

Nicolae Popescu
Ismail cooks fish soup. Irimia is cleaning his bow, Gherasim is polishing the rudder, Haralamb is checking the string, Mihu is washing the deck. The captain appears. Ismail asks: Isn't Adnana here? Adnana doesn't come, she's tired. Without Adnana we would not go, always having something nice to say to Ismail. But I have a helper for you, Ismail, Ghiulsun. A beautiful girl is walking on the deck. Oh, this what I call life. Captain, I would want some help too, Gherasim asks immediately. Me too, me too, the others quickly asking. The captain is sweating, Ghiulsun said: Ghiulsun helps them all.  

(Translated by Andreea Iulia Udroiu / 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 September 2023, the group has 11,820 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.