This Fall

Elena Șușman
He would come to life when he was waiting for me at the train station. I would come with baggage, he would take the suitcase: I'll carry it, child, so that is easier for you. When I was leaving, he would bring freshly picked apples: take them, my girl, cause you cannot find, among strangers, such sweet apples. He would come to me bent and with a walking stick. He would sit on the terrace diving in thoughts only he knew. It's hard the autumn of life, child, years pass too quickly. Come home. I can't, I whispered to him. Back then I didn't understand his turmoil and pain. He died alone in a frosty November. Forgive me, father.

Andrei Tiganus
The old lady asks me to bring her more food. On autumn/ fall is easier, the path is clearer. But why don't you leave, granny? The trees don't let me, my dear. I hug her and I cry. I'll get you out of here, I tell her, she smiles. She caresses my head, with her thin fingers, with the scent of mushrooms. Come, go now, they have arrived. Who? Never mind, dear, I'll tell you some other time. Some hungry, wild eyes were lurking at the window. I screamed and I ran through the foliage. It was only yesterday that I felt ashamed, when I came back. I found the chair empty and the house turned upside down.

Paul Dârvariu
When I felt that the fall's coldness bursts into my kitchen, I closed the window. Suddenly, I heard a bang. On the floor, a little bird was lying on the floor. I think it wanted to fly out and she hit itself, in its flight, against the closed window. It seemed dead. I did it a heart massage and what it can be called mouth-to-beak breathing. After a while, it had come to its senses and flew away. If the comrade gave us homework to write a composition entitled What reason of happiness I had today, I would know what to write. I would tell how I saved a titmouse's life.

(Translated by Irina Vild / 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 December 2023, the group has 12,210 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.