At the Barbecue

Miruna Marin
The men are flipping the meat on the fire. My man is drinking beer. The godfather prefers white wine. Expensive. His godson is filling his glass. Godfather, is it good? Not bad. A Rothschild would have been better. I roll my eyes. The little godfather is chasing my daughter in the garden. They are laughing in a squeaky way behind the bushes full of roses. Oh sweetheart, take it easy, says the godmother. Mara is a little girl, you can't play with her in the same way you are playing with your friends. Why don't you kiss her, says the godfather. So what if she doesn't let you? All the girls do the same at the beginning. They are laughing. I imagine how the godfathers' belly would sizzle if I roasted him over the fire.

Fabiola Stoi
I'm looking through the fence posts wishing I was in the yard, with the children, around the fire. The smell of burning wood sticks and roast meat is in the air. Cats and dogs are sniffing around the yard. Everything is so different there than in our yard. My mum says that's the great poverty. But deep down I know that's actually pure joy. I have so much free time until my mum comes back from the city with the night train. I lift my dress, to protect it from the mud in the alley. I entered the yard. Later, my petticoat made of taffeta will rustle, when the musicians start playing their instruments and we start dancing around the fire.

Tavi Tone
What kind of minced meat rolls is this, cousin? Can't you see that is sticking on the grill? All the food containers was frozen, I had no other choice. Some people dies and have nothing to eat, so get over it. Look at these poor people by the river, they has no meat. That skinny girl was in line at the market before me and she emptied all the vegetables' shelfs from Mirel's store. I heard they are vegetarians. Maybe they're Adventists, world's gone mad. Eat this one too, it's cooked. Man, why didn't you buy Tecuci mustard? This one sucks. Hey, stop making comments or I send you to eat fodders with the others. Come on, take some bread cuz are good.

(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.