Unbuttoned

Andra Toropoc
I was in a bow tie, grinning a big smile, displaying my six-pack abs in front of the roaring crowd. I was looking shiny, standing next to my fellows in sexy poses in front of the women who were whooping frantically. One of them thrust herself on stage and slipped a banknote under my belt. Before I had the chance to say thank you, she cupped my butt cheeks, caressed my thighs and ripped off tear away pants. She waved them as you wave a flag while the others were screaming duck, duck. Maybe they would have used another consonant if I hadn't been wearing my lucky underwear knitted by my mum, with ducks on both sides.

Carmen Tot
How far am I from the life in which I would roll down the hill, laughter trailing me? Or the one in which he would carry me on his back, like a stretching monkey clung by his neck, monopolising him, kissing the back of his head? Bloody hell, how long has it been since then, was it in another world? Unbuttoning my grey coat, I breathe in all the cold in the world. I am a robot, I tell myself, I know what cold is too well, but I cannot feel it. Then I cry, collapsed to the ground in what used to be a park, my back leaning against the door of my car, engine running. My phone spits out the sound of a new notification.

Ionuț Morariu
Ask any button, it'll tell you the same thing. Sudden moves are the most dangerous. From being unbuttoned to being removed forever it's just a step. Truly, I tell you that a sudden move pulls you out from the buttonhole for good. Are you saying there's nothing to worry about, as everything ends up in the dustbin of history: flat, shank, stud and toggle buttons, and all things sewed up in the world's tissue of lies? It might as well be true. But I am begging you, sweetheart, do not tell anyone that three nights in a row I dreamt the two of us -a meat two-way separating zipper.

(Translated by Alina Roșu / 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.