Black Metal

Marian Bircea
There is a war in the meeting room of the city hall. Manele[1] against black metal can be heard from the counsellors' speakers. Stop it, the mayor said. We must take urgent action. A man killed himself at the cursed willow. That is the only big tree in the villages. What is to be done? Sidewalks, the manele listener yells. A water network, the metal listener roars. We have no funds, the mayor yells. And that is why no one votes for us. What should we do? In the afternoon, the drummer makes an announcement in the village. Attention, attention. On Monday we will cut down the willow. Whoever wants to hang themselves, now is the time.
Magdalena Daminescu
She was crossing the street holding her mommy's hand, when a black and heavy metal monster came upon them. Mom pushed her hard and she fell. She woke up at the hospital, without a mom and without a leg. When her father brought her a metal leg home and told her its name is Nobelius and it will help her walk again, she thought to herself that there are also good metals, that came into this world to replace those who hurt people. Day by day, Nobelius became a part of her and brother with her other leg. She was begging it to bring her mom home.

Șerban Răzvan
They were called Vlad the Impaler. In the underground of the Brest, they cracked the drums and scratched the guitars with their satanic screams. Each lyric was a stake in God's heart. Each scream was the profanation of purity. In the evening, the Drakksteim brothers washed their faces, that were smeared with black ink. Behind the masks, they were two kids with long hair. During the night, they had nightmares with the Prince of Light. Their fathers sat beside the Prince. Their chiding looks made their bodies tingle. During the day, they got rid of their demons through black metal.

(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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.