Romania, Dearest

Ruxandra Donose
I've never met a man in the world who didn't love sarmale[1]. Pork Rind, blood sausages, these push the boundaries, but the traditional, national sarmale, not to be missed at Christmas, is honestly enjoyed by all. Where does the word "sarma" come from? Ah, from the Turks. They have a new identity with us, they're sausages. If you go to the north of Moldavia, one-finger rolls justify the diminutive. In Ardeal, you get a soup with a cream. Steak, meatballs, sausages. You pay with pennies. We're very sweet. So wake up, little Romanian.
Carmen Tot
 There was a time when my country stretched from the gate to the bend after kindergarten. In my country, in the evening, Grandpa would shout from the road, that Grandma had cut up chicken and made chicken broth soup with garlic and polenta. Growing up, my country stayed a little small and I was eager to expand it. The first territory we conquered was that of Sântuhalm[1], about ten kilometres from us, which had a sports airfield. My father took me there on a feast day to see the planes dancing in the sky through the coloured smoke. Whose country is this, I asked? Yours, my father said. If you want it.
Răzvan Drăgoi
Can you feel it? There's a spring under this ground. If you listen closely, you can hear what the blades of grass are saying to each other. You can read what the wind writes on the surface of the lake over there. The reeds are the plant life of the water. I know every tree by name. I know the scent of wet earth and the taste of the clay of which, after all, I am made. The light has a texture I can feel. And the quivering cry of bloodstains that were once people. All this is home. And then, from the phone, a manea[1] rang out.
(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.