Memories of Dacia

Corina Nina
It was the first time I got into a Dacia. For my birthday, I had received the coolest bike in the world. It was pink and its bell had white daisies painted on it. Uncle Ion had brought it from Germany. It was when I first rode it on the street that I fully understood what it really meant to be a star. All the kids in the park wanted to ride my bike. I got on the bike, full of enthusiasm and rode off like lightning. At the next turn, I pressed the brake on the handlebars. Nothing happened. I ran into the red car parked on the sidewalk. I had destroyed its left wing.

Diana Cornea
We've just moved in together. I can't say that we've made that many memories. Maybe just the usual bickering. But this happened back there in Ionescu street, as well. There, through the window, I could see fir trees and the neighbourhood's thermal plant. The neighbours on the kerb spitting seeds. There was also Gherghe ­- the old woman all the kids loved - cleaning the block. But all these are now gone. Vanished. Here, in the Dacia, I can't see anything through the window. I'm lying. I can see the wall of the house opposite. And the courtyard of an escape room where, during the summer, the cherry trees are full of cherries. One day I'll move away.

Ligia Dumitrescu
They called it Yolk, a variant of the Dacia 1300. Fancy as it was, it also had an alarm. That is where it all started. Or, well, where it started to ring. At the door. At about four in the morning. I felt my way to the door in the dark so I wouldn't wake up completely. Who is it? I asked. Police, someone answered from the other side. What's the matter? I insisted, surprised. I heard that you've been disturbing the peace. Oh my God. What do you mean, sir? I was sleeping. Now I might actually want to disturb it, I said, irritated because I had lost sleep. Yolk was to blame. And some stupid neighbours.

(Translated by Valentina Mihai / 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 February 2024, the group has 12,700 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.