One-night Stand

Miruna Marin
The sternocleidomastoid muscle, who has two heads, therefore hypocritical, got the sudden idea that the mastoid isn't enough of a destination for him. One evening, he fell in love with the occipital bone, rigid, curved and appetizing. He kept reaching for it until he got bored. Thank goodness: the man was rolling in pain. The next evening, he sat his heart to the palatal vault. What a name. What a shape. He strived to twist towards her. Hey, kitty, a torticollis appeared and then he calmed down. On the third evening, he found his love close to his house. Passionately, the left and right SCM tried to embrace one another, until everything blacked out.

Caterina Tudorache
Meow, she purred softly. He dug his claws into the ground and stretched his chubby back. Meow. She took a step and vaguely wiped him in a feline move. She sat down beside him and started to wash her pink paw. He looked at her and sniffed the cool autumn air. Well, there's no one else around. That's it. Meow. He sat down as well. With one leg in the air, he began to clean everything off his belly. She sighed. So that's why he's single. What's become of the men these days? I wash myself next to these domestic guys. Meow. I'll call you back. I'm off to chase mice now. 

Titela Durnea
He gathered courage and went out in the evening above the water flipping his wings. The metamorphosis was complete. On his left shoulder he now carried the silence of his ancestors, on his right the unspoken words of the descendants. He saw him through the thousands that were roaming above the glaze. He knew that it was Him. They were united briefly, intensely. That moment was the eternity from which they would feast for all the remaining centuries, past and future. When they parted, their eyes were glowing. She fell, glittering over the waters. He smiled. Tomorrow, a new nymph will love. Ephemeral.

(Translated by Maria-Ilinca Darie / 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.