Session

Lucian Lerghievici
Mihai: Now listen, Ionică. Stop studying for Isoscel[1]'s class, she will fail you anyway. Drop it, let's go to the movie with Dana and Geta... Spider-Man is playing at Dacia cinema. That's how it used to be. You'd go to the theatre, to the museum etc. Everything comes to you nowadays, famous museums, for instance. For a hefty sum, naturally. Movies? Just a click away. But there is something else that I want. I need no money, no currency, I want the real Santa Claus to drop by every year. I want to be a child again. Send Greta to me, the Queen said. Take 10 steps and walk them like an ant.
Caterina Tudorache
The Dormouse perched on the desk. So today's topic is The Great War. He fell silent for a while, coughing,examining his nails. The Dromedary rustled something in the back of the class. He whispered. Germany.Started. The Dormouse met the school master's eyes. Granny has departed. The Dromedary whispered. Dumbass. Germany. Not granny. There's where it all started. The Dormouse met the school master's eyes once again. Soo, dumbass, granny hasn't departed. The Dromedary stormed out, slamming the door. No way. He's both deaf and dumb. The Dormouse shouted. Who, me?! Me? What does granny have to do with the war?

Arthur Ianoși
I'm the type of person who dips the biscuit in the coffee till there are no more bubbles. It's all about patience. I did the same with Paco. A parrot. I thought that teaching him how to speak must be a piece of cake. I eased him into it and started with the alphabet. A-ayy, B-beee, C-seee, D-deee, G-silence, H-aait etc. Then I kept on asking simple questions. How do you do? Wooo doody? Who reads the book? Wooo reeds ze pook? Paco, it's huuu, not wooo. That's a question. Ayy, alfwit! Woo said wooo? I said wooo. Wo! Huuu, not Woo. Vete a la mierda, yo soy mexicano.

(Translated by Bogdan Macarie / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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.