Cabbage Rolls

Alina Ilie
Madam Marian's mother, do you allow Marian to come outside? He is not coming until he has finished reading. Marian, how much do you have left? We don't have a ball. Mom, I have three pages left, can I go? You'll be in big trouble if you don't finish it until Monday. And don't take the ball. You'll get under cars again and you'll scratch your knees. She had finished the chores, she poured herself a glass of cherry brandy, she tied her robe and she squinted through the window to see her boy. An echo could be heard into the night, you broke the dishes and ate the cabbage rolls, and the clear laughs of the children.

Ana-Maria Butuza
 What do you want, you hobo? You are all over the city; I can't even swallow something at peace. Can I have a bite? I haven't eaten anything since yesterday, wept the dirty kid. Fine, take this dumpling to warm up your stomach, you poor fool. With his large eyes full of hunger, the kid swallowed the whole piece so fast that he could not even chew it and he dropped it out of his mouth. Get out of here, you tramp. You're throwing food away? and his heavy boot kicked the small body. Crouched with pain, he moved away, sucking his greasy fingers.

Daniela Zaharov
Cabbage rolls are the standard of a housewife's virtue: you are good to marry if you know how to make them. I was lucky: he married me before I learned how to make them. To prove I was the right choice, I tried to learn it later on, but I got bored rolling them and I got angry trying to make them equal. My husband was understanding and we amicably filed for divorce at the notary. Now we send each other pictures of cabbage rolls that we refuse through others' lives. We are not too passionate about them and we meet up for comparisons. His are with heels, mine are with a bowtie.

(Translated by Claudia Cioplea / 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.