The School of Magic

Paul Dârvariu
Auntie, I only have two wishes, but daddy doesn't want to give \'em to me. Name them, young man. Well, one is for winter, one is for summer. The winter one is that I want to have opinci[1] too, like the other kids, and the summer one that I want to stay for a few weeks at the sheepfold. Sure, is settled. Do you have two lei[2]? I do. Put \'em on this peddle, jump over and say out loud: Peddle, peddle, my will be done. I did as she said. When I got home, father put the opinci in my arms: You, nudnik, I don't wanna hear ye fret when they send ye out with the sheep to graze.

George Dometi
is the place where he will be able to take the nothingness hidden in the darkness of words and, through a pen incision on the white sheets, to do whatever he wants. What the others failed to do, the ones preoccupied with palmistry, necromancy, alchemy, astrology or religion, he will deliver with his mind and writing. It may seem like a trinket, like a trifle, but for him it is the only chance to survive the failure in the family life, career or socially. Look at him now, alone, sad, abandoned in a hospital, without any chance of happiness. Writing will teach him how to live.
 
 Sanda Vaideș
Grandma's nickname for me was Mago. At the age of 6, she made me an apprentice to the illusionist Gitano. Soon, I had picked up some tricks and performed a show at the Vatican. Guests were the Boot's elite. I got terribly excited and messed up the tricks: the Pope took out ribbons over his mouth, several cardinals pulled rabbits by the ears from under their cassocks, a few others' kips smoked colored steam, doves started coming out of purses and bags, it rained with playing cards, and the doors of the churches were closing and opening by themselves. With a kick in the ass, I went to school normally.

(Translated by Tania Diniță / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan, Edited 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.