Music Is My Life

Cecilia Fofiu
He is a kind-hearted man, Nicu Pitulice[1], the neighbor, a widower, a little paunchy and extremely cheerful. All day long he looks for something to do in the yard where he sings with a beautiful voice. The big trouble is that he has kept going on and on with the rifle and the wide belt for a month. I have gone crazy, I have started humming it even at night, I imagine myself the star of mountains. Today I take out on him hard, man, change that repertoire, I'm losing my mind. He looks at me in amazement, unbuttons his shirt, grabs the scythe, gets close to the fence, cuts a burdock, closes his eyes and starts, it's fun to stay at the y-m-c-a.
Anca Postescu Stancov
Grandpa' was 16 years old when the war started, he dreamt of becoming a conductor, but he learnt to clean wounds and to carry dead bodies. The number of the wounded soldiers was increasing, the supplies were dwindling, they started to decide who was to receive medicine and who wasn't. A man was begging in a corner- let me die, anyway I don't have hands anymore, I play the piano, I have nothing to return to. Grandpa got the chance to conduct, always carrying in his pocket a golden lighter which had an engraved sol key. He didn't smoke, he only kept alive the dream of a soldier who had died when he couldn't play anymore.

Daniela Toader
I was born on a Monday. My parents rejoiced, hit the drums and set off fireworks. I grew up withviolin chords and with old wines, I studied at the most famous schools, I celebrated on rock music, I fell in love with a jazz-man, I had fiddlers on my wedding, romances buried my parents, the music of the eighties raised my children and Melô de Carla Cintia buried my nostalgia. I had a beautiful life, I told them. They nodded yes and then rang the bells.

(Translated by Irina Vild / 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.