At the Barbecue

Paul Dârvariu
He sat down at my table without asking for permission. You don't recognize me, do you? I do recognize you, you didn't change at all. What do you drink? Ciuc beer? Mitică, come here. One Corona and tequila for Mr. professor. And some grilled wild game meat. Don't worry, everything is on the house. Do you like this restaurant? I have eight more like this in the country, one in Paris and one in Madrid. Hunchback Franchise. Believe me, it's all because of you. He stood up and left one of his business card on the table. Sorin Micu, entrepreneur. Could it be Micu, the one who leave the college after I failed him at an exam?

Diana Cornea
He had tied whistles instead of slats for the fence. When the wind was blowing, it was like a fairy-tale. Fairies with butterflies in their hair and centaurs much more cheered up than ever appeared out of nowhere. Three-headed dragons and henchmen were in bon ton. Only Ileana kept untwisting her long, heavy braided pigtails while sighing. He was crafting on and on. He didn't stop. Today like this, tomorrow like that, he made the house walls in the same way as the fence: whistle near whistle. Some bigger, some smaller. It looked like a pan flute. Ileana was the temptation among the whistles. Ileana was surrounded by a masterful symphony inside the bird cage.

Vero Anttheia Teodoru
She is vaping in the train compartment without asking if I don't mind. I open the door, I tell her I don't like what she's doing but she says to me without any shame: I don't care. Move in another compartment. To move? Me? The highest of insolence with no limits. She stings me with her eyes. The seduction attempt failed. She kept crossing her legs like in Basic Instinct, puffing on the cigarette like an old, rusty locomotive; but it was all in vain. I close my eyes because I don't want to see her anymore. She stoods up and leaves. She vanishes. I get a sick feeling, like when you taste a rotten mackerel from the grill.

(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.