I'm Still Looking for Myself

Dan Banu
I took an ordinary cloud, crumpled it in my hands like a snowball to give it substance, pressed it gently, then I tied the string around it. I tied the other end to the balcony railing. I took a slow step. Although the rope was narrow, it didn't hinder my walk. I had passed sparrows, pigeons, seagulls; above, there were a few falcons. When the neighbour from apartment seven stuck her head out the window and shouted, Man, what are you doing? Are you crazy? I don't know, still searching for myself, I said over my shoulder. The wind blew gently.

Arthur Ianoși
When I got lost the first time, my parents were fighting. They found me where Costinești[1] ended, stringing letters on a thread. The second time I was 7. They found me at the end of the third bus' route. They came fighting. The driver wiped my tears away. The third time was at the divorce. My folks forgot me in a cab. The fourth time I was 18. They forgot about my birthday. The fifth time, I ran away into the world. They found me in the attic of a train. After that, I lost count, but I string letters along this white sheet of paper hoping to find myself.
Marian Bircea
Mrs. Cornea politely declined a position, out of embarrassment and disgust at the thought of becoming a colleague with a former interrogator. She asked, Who is it, uncle Nelu? Silviu responded formally, We know. Who is we? Silviu said that we are foolish and need twenty years to recover. He missed a zero at the end. After the first miner's riot, we discovered the abject scum that screamed hysterically, uncle Neluuu, don't abandon us. Since then, I'm still searching for myself and trying to reconstruct myself daily in the original utopia of uncle Nelu's christening relationship.

(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.