All Sails Up

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
He didn't love her, but he didn't want to see her with any other man either, so he would hurt her. Regularly, like a ritual, to prove to everyone that she obeyed him. At other times, when he thought that she was laughing too hard, he would put his hand around her neck and give it a little squeeze, just enough to feel that he could strangle her at any moment. It turns her on, he would tell the others, who looked at him with disgust. That night he got angry because the DJ had kissed her on the shoulder. He didn't do anything then, but towards morning they all realized that she was nowhere to be found. At the docks, the police were waiting for them.

Iulia Biro
The music started to play. She opened all the windows of the apartment. The draft slammed the doors. She undressed. She walked around naked, from one room to another, engulfed in a state of peacefulness she had never experienced before. The pile of pills was on the gray kitchen counter next to the water bottle. She sat down on the counter and felt its coolness under her buttocks. She took the pills: two, three at a time, conscientiously, drinking the water straight from the bottle. She no longer needed to prove anything to anyone. The curtains fluttered white outside the windows, the flag of the surrendering side.

George Dometi
The knife is flung on the floor among the scattered guts. Ankles torn from a dismembered body, hanging from a hook, are thrown into a large cauldron. Wait for it to drain off, says a hulk of a man. The three people next to him turn to the only bucket there and throw up. The pool of blood mixes with the discarded remains. When you're done acting like some prudes, wash the floor so it doesn't stink. And pick up those rags. We have a delivery tomorrow. The frail bodies heaved the pig carcass from one place to another.

(Translated by Andreea Teodorescu-Colciu / 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.