Driving School

Andra Toropoc
Vroom, vroom, now take left, the little boy kept shouting from up there, on his grandpa's shoulders, twisting grandpa's ear. Push the clutch and turn right, he commanded as he was twisting his other ear. The grandpa gasped turning his head. Noo, stop looking back, pay attention to the road. Ok, we're done, we'll stop and park, he said and he stuck his foot in the ribs of his student. Come on, go, go, there is still room left, do you want me to take the steering wheel again? Nooo. And they were laughing. Over the years, driving the inherited car, the grandkid relived the memory. Don't look back, he turned off the emotion that brought tears into his eyes.

Siranuș Hakobian
During the working program, Mister Puiu, a state engineer, taught me the ABC of driving, because he had adriver training license. Swell man, Mister Puiu, I'd known it ever since he asked if I had driven before. I took my fate in my hands in a crossing when I lost my instructor under the board: the boss is watching me, he says, drive carefully. How come I managed to passI don't know, because it was raining and Mister Puiu had failed to tell me anything about the wipers. I tried something around the steering wheel, but the policeman told me calmly to turn off the high beam.

Alexandra Buhudini
A blind man and a deaf man were standing in a queue to buy soda. He hadn't seen a woman until that morning, I hadn't heard a heart under my sheet. For how long? We didn't ask ourselves. Love with him was like when you wait to see the Parthenon and you get a trip to Baile Olanesti. The steam of coffee was combined with the smoke of cigarettes. And? What did you do? I put on my brake shoes and I braked at Olanesti. After 25 years of taxidriving, his ash is still at the rearview, because the last journey will be made together.

(Translated by Ema-Teodora Rădulescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by prof dr. Nadina Vișan, edited 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.