The Winter of a Bearded Old Man

Iulia Biro
He would work only once a year, but then everything had to be planned precisely. You wouldn't have said that, as big and old as he was, he would be so well coordinated and agile, but those years of training and missions hadn't been in vain. He would get the message with the target and all the details. He would take out Winter, his sniper rifle, from her safe and get her ready. He would clean her and speak softly, just as he would a lover. He would explain to her what was to be done. He would leave, ice his target, then go back to his little village in Iceland, where nobody knew he was a paid assassin.

Ana-Maria Butuza
It's Christmas Eve morning. Sleepy, he turns his back to the ringing alarm clock and drops a stinky bomb. It's a good thing there's the smell of the cabbage rolls cooking slowly on the stove. Like it or not, he puts on his vest made from the fur of the last reindeer, that died of old age. Darned cold, the poor man shivers and throws another piece of wood in the fire. He shakes the ash out of his white beard and sits on the three-legged stool, in a sour mood: chimneys again, he sighs. This night always gets me. The only ones that just can't retire are me and Bruce Willis.

Corina Nina
I hate winter with all my heart. I've never liked it, but the past few years I haven't been able to stand it. Tomorrow we're going skiing. My back hurts just thinking about it. Hey, babe, what are you thinking about? I almost had a heart attack. Lola, my girlfriend, is a thirty years old blonde witch, who can read my mind. In bed we get along wonderful, we don't need any words. Other times, the white hairs of my beard go up, I swear. I was thinking about what to put under the Christmas tree for you, my fairy, aren't I your favourite Santa Claus who makes all of your wishes come true?

(Translated by Ruxandra Adriana Dodoiu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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.