Reading Time

Arthur Ianoși
I'm so sensitive that sometimes I like to pretend I'm blind. I have a younger brother and I always impress him with my talent. He has a book of stories. He blindfolds me and I tell him to open it just in case. I touch the pages with my fingertips and start reading. Sometimes I let my index finger feel the letters more. I read his whole story. Word for word. Wow, you are a magician, he tells me. It's the book my mother used to read to me when I was six. I know it by heart. Tomorrow I will read to her too.

Marian Bircea
It was in the school curriculum, our teacher had the great idea to write essays with a certain number of words, according to a given topic and everyone's strengths, which we would then read aloud in front of the class. Not everyone had a fancy. My reading was eagerly awaited by my colleagues. They applauded, they were happy. The comrade was giving grades. Eight, nine, but never ten. I once asked her why she doesn't like what I write. Because you don't know your place. Ten took the classmates with parents who were doctors, teachers, engineers, militiamen.

Beatrice Chivu
Mia was sitting on the therapist's sofa, dressed in a deux pieces. First she talked about the weather and the gossips, dug a long way to She. But she got to Girl. Finally found. Mia howled her unlovedness and rolled over, and she stroked her without touching her. Without sermons, she carefully glued the slats back into place. Like a narrator, she repeated hypnotically - you deserve love too. At dawn she no longer recognized herself in the mirror, a woman had taken her place. As she came into the world, she also spoke. Her first words were - well, but I deserve love too.

(Translated by Andreea Maria Liceanu / 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 January 2024, the group has 12,500 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.