I Gave You a Ring

Tavi Tone
Do you remember, Lenuța, when I first kissed you, in the cornfield, and you asked me if you were going to get pregnant? I had a cell phone, and you didn't even know what that was; you laughed at me for carrying a remote control in my pocket. Then I took you to Dubai to impress you; we slept in that plush-floored hotel where you took off your shoes at the door. I bought you a white gold ring with a diamond from Cartier, and you told me off because the arabian had swindled me, saying that gold is yellow like polenta. Yes, my dear, I was stupid, but if I weren't, I wouldn't have chosen you.

Alex Caragian
I know every piece of your body, even with my eyes closed for so many light-years. I couldn't get lost on your terrain, not even in a black hole. Okay, I actually designed you from scratch. Or even less. You are everything I wanted in the world because I created you to fit my needs. Selfish but practical; love has disappeared alongside humanity. Soon we will reach our new home. You'll like it; it has a field of levitating diamonds around it. And he mechanically intertwined her fingers into his.

Nicolae Popescu
He humiliated me, he wiped the floor with me. He never saw me, never felt my emotions, it all revolved around him, that narcissi. And he only had punishments and rules for our boy, Vlad. No kind gaze or word. He left on a yacht with his rich girlfriend, who stroked his ego daily. I got a job cleaning for them. I finished my work, I passed by him in a hurry. He is on deck. I call out to him from the shore. There is a ring in your pocket. The grenade is in. Boooom.

(Translated by Ioana Grințescu / 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 November 2023, the group has 12,090 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.