I'm Still Looking for Myself

Carmen Tot
Am I you? I do it desperately, as a last resort. Am I you? I ask the failed violinist, with his coat rotted and his bow stiffened by the winter frost. Am I you? I ask the bird in Fermina Daza's courtyard. Am I you? I ask the monk from the old hermitage whose song my mother hums tenderly, on sleepless nights, walking under the vine vault. Am I you? I ask in the cemetery where I used to laugh as a child. Am I you? I ask the philosopher's stone, the god, the last kiss. I am you, I am you, answers the echo of the eternal search.

Tina Dublea
Naahh, you're looking for me. You need me to keep your angel status. You're looking for me like a moth is looking for a flame, but I think you need a flashlight with more lumens or you can go straight to the Easter torch. You've lost my shoulder and I can no longer shelter you under my collarbone. I wish I could, but since you brought out all my demons, I can't. You see I exist, but I'm not. It's such a long way, the star is dead in the corn field and you are not the one capable of reaching me. I found myself a little bit. What I wish for you too.

Florina Hegedüs
You, small guys, do you know how long I've been looking for myself? For over 150 years. And to be sure that I find myself, I took it, you know, on two paths. I caught fire and exploded. But neah, I didn't give up, I got up, I thought some good time and started on three paths. Since then I've been looking for myself, in my manner. A few stop and ask me, out of respect, like, how do I do it? Most of them pretend not to see me. At night I sleep but at dawn I am the first to start looking for myself. Are all the ones that are running still looking for themselves? Are you lost like me in the red yellow green dilemma?

(Translated by Ioana Andreea Radu / 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.