Romania, Dearest

Mircea Mihăilescu
Dudu, what the hell are we doing here, I don't know the area at all? Give me a break with this zephyr, Romică. Existentialism sticks to you like a snotty sink. You're good to send after death, because by the time you get back, he'll kill himself. Who? Death, damn you for being sensitive, because a man can't drink a little glass of Cotnar wine, you'll be quick to come with the valley of tears. Yes, Dudu, but it's December 1^st. Shut up. Romania lives inside of us. To hell with everything, if we are not filling the world with Dromiheți[1].
Cristian Dumitru
They come, they stay for three or four days. I kiss my mother and child. I go with a light to the grandparents. With friends to the Camera din Față[1] teahouse. We talk about women, jobs, that sort of thing. We pat each other on the shoulder bye-bye. And Henri Coandă airport-Peretola[2]. Good job. Life with joy. When I'm angry, I curse Italians in Romanian and Romanians in Italian. But I'm a migratory bird. In my right eye I hide a compass. After a month, the compass moves to the heart. And again Peretola-Henri Coandă airport. I never wonder what I am. I know. A migratory bird hatched in Romania.
Florentina Enache
They had seen what there was to see and now they were finishing their journey. Their helmets were shredded, their cloaks were heavy, and their fleeces were bowed from the rain. Hey Petre, where are we, it's so beautiful here? Romania they call it, and here you've wasted a lot of wealth. But how are the people? Well, there are few people left, said Petre, because those who haven't left are gone, and those who have stayed miss going. I know some of them, they are very dear to me and their country. We'll be there soon; after that fountain, we'll walk another hour and we'll be home.

(Translated by Victor Albei / 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.