There Is Always Something behind a Grate

Florina Hegedüs
On my way out of the bar I stumble into it. I scream in pain. It is made out of steel. Someone must have lost it because it does not look so bad that it was thrown away, just so. I slip it between my coat and my shirt. I feel its cold metallic touch but it does not matter, it only matters what it is inside. In a hidden alleyway I smash it to the ground until its shell got separated and I am swept by a sigh of relief as I see it, stuck between the ribs pulsating and smiling, just like a pomegranate. My blood rushes to my brain. I don't need it, I don't have any use for it, and I put it back on the ground. Let someone else find something like it.

Cecilia Fofiu
Fănel bought an apartment on the ground floor with the money from the wedding. He is married, he has two daughters, it is said that he is settled down, but he is truly nostalgic about his parents' village house. He has trouble sleeping looking for a solution. He bought some bags of cement, reinforced steel, planks, tools and bought his colleagues some beers for their help. He builds an amazing porch with a wooden fence, just like home. He lays a vineyard which bridges splendidly. Hiding away, he watches his neighbours. This way, he notices his wife in the arms of the douche from the second floor.

Nicolae Popescu
Roger has been imprisoned unjustly for three years. He decided to escape. He bribed a guard, he has a small shovel. Like a modern Monte Cristo, he digs a tunnel. Look, a beam of light. It is an air vent. He herds the prison director saying: Today, I have signed off Rogers' release. That is not why I have slept with you. You said that you would leave Ava alone. That is Roger's wife's voice. He snaps: How the hell am I free? Did I dig for nothing? He pushes open the grate and jumps into the office. The director has a heart attack, his wife faints and Roger runs off with Ava to Panama.

(Translated by Andreea Cuprian / 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.