A Photograph Forgotten in the Back of a Drawer

Claudia Ene
Grandma's brain is a big closet with messed up drawers. She never put things back. Why would she do that in her old age? Today she's looking for the same thing she was yesterday. She rummages through childhood toys, trips with grandpa to Predeal and daily arguments with him: we put basil in the garden, no, thyme, no mint, no, how about you mind your own business. He forgot how those discussions ended. He'd forgotten everything. He only remembers grandpa if he sees his picture. But today she forgot where she put it yesterday.

Viorel Spinu
Will you buy me that doll with the yellow hair, please? But you have one just like it at home. Will you buy me that doll with the yellow hair, please? Tears trickle gently from the perfect blue eyes. Okay, I'll buy it for you. Hands reach out and clasp the doll in a gentle embrace. The smile opens wide, serene, and the eyes laugh at a forgotten picture in the bottom of a drawer. Wrinkles fade, the grip of time melts into untarnished happiness. The old woman's fingers caress the doll's face and her eyes laugh in joy.

Vlad Mușat
The two of us at a Goo Goo Dolls concert in Prague. We pulled a bottle of wine out of the fridge and drank it down. Then I called my best friend, David, a forensic scientist. I asked him to come over in the morning. The next day he arrived with the team. He was upset, he wasn't allowed to do what I asked. Still, we had a 35-year friendship. I went into the house after they finished the procedure and felt even more alone. I called David and begged him to tell me exactly where her footprints had been. The number you have dial.

(Translated by Adela Neacșu / 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 October 2023, the group has 11,950 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.