Reading Time

Carmen Tot
Today, we'll read The Wild Swans. Their eyes widened with anticipation. They had taken their usual places where they sat every evening when they visited us: uncle Pătru at the table with a pack of unfiltered Carpathians cigarettes in front of him, Aunt Ana on the wood crate, with the spindle on her lap, and Grandma standing next to the burning stove. When she was sure everyone was ready, the seven-year-old girl began reading the story to her elders. The swans started flying over the village, and the emperor's daughter managed to weave the last shirt from nettles, enchanted with love, for the youngest.

Nicolae Popescu
I came home exhausted from work, but it's my turn to read to Ana. I heard it's cooler this way; I was hoping only my wife would read to her. She read to her yesterday, and today she's baking a blackberry pie. Ana opens the book, and I can barely see the letters: Martin The Bunny and The Fox are kissing. My head drops onto my chest, and Ana shakes me: Daddy, the bunny isn't Martin, and it's not kissing the fox. Ana, don't you want the phone? No, you said reading makes you smarter. That's when I decided: I give up reading, and start cooking instead. While a bean stew is boiling, I'll catch up on a month's worth of sleep.

Alex Caragian
I read meters, I read apple cores and almanacs, I read with my eyes closed, in glances, I read in an unknown language, but also in that of friends, I read from right to not right, diagonally until dizzy, I read with my head down, I read without head, I read over shoulders, in the subway, I read to be successful, I read palms, in Palma de Mallorca, I read in bald heads, in thoughts, in coffees, in Lamium purpureum flowers, I read for money, but also for banknotes, I read illegibly, I read everything that is invisible.

(Translated by Diana Georgiana Rădăcineanu / 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.