At the Barbecue

Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
It's been over three months. It's beengetting worse and worse. I could no longer bear her hot flashes, her tantrums, the fog in which she had plunged. I could hear her dragging her slippers to the bathroom in the morning. I knew it's gonna be a new day like all the others before it. She is gonna tell me: I'm too hot, I'm too cold. She is gonna yell at me and throw things at me. She will say she's no longer who she used to be, that she has no purpose in life. But all these things were no longer scaring me. All the pain I am feeling is from the fact that this warm place which was like a shelter for me since the very beginning, is now just a heap of ash.

Florentina Ghițescu
They've casted him in a commercial about grilled meat. Money was good so he accepted. Until he would get the big part, he had to do something for a living. Put down that book, that's not why you get money. What's with this face? You are at a barbeque with your friends, you're enjoying it. I wasn't at the auditioning process and here you are. Don't you know that saying: With every book you read, a barbeque is missed. Let this information sink into your head and let's see some joy and zest for life. Take this minced meat roll, dipp it into the mustard and eat it. I think they chose you for your teeth.

Lucian Domșa
Beloved believers, Reverend Grătărie said, we must install an iron grill at the entrance in the church, in front of the door. Many of you come in to pray or kiss icons, but yesterday I saw that money was missing from the mercy box. Nearby, Father Agheasmie was checking his watch, trying to hide the sound of his hungry stomach. He was craving for the beef barbeque that was waiting for him at home. When he arrived, he entered the kitchen and stared at the empty table. Where's the food? Roared at his wife. I gave it to the Father Grătărie. He said that you sent him.

(Translated by Constantin Grigorescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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.