Rerouting

Caterina Tudorache
Vasile stumbled and cursed the relatives of the fence and his wife. He cursed them one by one and three more times. The fence slept peacefully, but the street moved too much. Hey, me. And his finger remained in the air. No. Yes. The uncertain steps stopped, and along with them, Vasile. Hey. Yo. As they saying. I'm tired. The bench couldn't stand him because of the distilled fumes, it pushed him over. Vasile rolled over, with pain in his soul and elbow; he made the crucial decision of the day. On all fours and with tears in his eyes, he ended up at the cemetery. He laughed foolishly, vomited, and fell asleep on Yours for eternity, Lenuța.

Andreea Mihaela Murariu Moldovanu
Did you have a grandmother who knew everything? A woman without education, but with her mind full of all the knowledge of the world? He should be handsome, sweetie, to hold him dear, not for his name. Rerouting. I gave up becoming a doctor's wife. Be saucy, that's how you keep him glued by your side. Satisfied with food but also in bed. Rerouting. Enhance the soup with sour cabbage and the voice with sweetness. Rather than being called stupid, it's better to be known for a sharp tongue. Partial rerouting. I speak little, but say a lot. And lipstick always on my lips.

Oana Jindiceanu
It has never happened to me before to aim for something, to wake up, check the information online, then fall back asleep and continue dreaming. It was a strange dream, in which I asked you for advice. I don't remember the advice, or even if you gave it to me. I only remember fragments of images, emotions, the fact that the people in the dream looked nothing like the real ones, and finally, I was telling you something I've wanted to tell you for a very long time. I woke up with the certainty that the dream is a sign to do something. To talk.

(Translated by Andreea Laura Stanca / 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.