Debtors' Prison

Ana-Maria Butuza
How many occupied houses are left in the village? I ask, shocked by the dead silence of its streets. Two or three, the old man said sadly. Everybody left, my dear, for countries where life is easier. Here, he wiped his eyes and then his nose with a dirty handkerchief, we don't even have electricity, we have no money to pay for it. Woe is us. There, see? And he points towards the old walls of a house once beautiful. That was the priest's house, but he, too, left. God took him away from us because we didn't have any money to pay for the candles for the departed.

Cristian Nedelcu
I was in the last year of high school, but I looked like I was in seventh grade. What can I say? I'm not complaining, girls liked me like that anyway, I wasn't the loser of the group, I had a lot of advantages, not gonna lie, but I had no money. And I kind of needed some. Lucky me that my little sister had a piggy bank. She was the youngest, so when we went carolling, she would get a lot of money. She stuffed it in that pig, with its goofy smile, on the bookcase. I don't know who invented the hairpins, but God bless them. I still owe my sister that money.

Cecilia Fofiu
My aunt is a venerable lady, donor with right of usufruct on the villa and account. I am the donee with the mission to satisfy her wishes. We have been living together for 13 years and I help her with absolutely everything she asks of me. She pampers me and sings my praises to the neighbours. It seems as though she's getting younger and stronger with each passing day. Last month she wanted to take a tango class. Since then, she has given up the cane to look young, I do her makeup every day and take her out on dates with that decrepit Dan. I wait for her in the park. She fell in love and now she announced to me that she is getting married and I will be maid of honour.

(Translated by Andreea Teodorescu-Colciu / 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 March 2024, the group has 12,800 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.