Music Is My Life

Monica Aldea
Leana pulls the car door and gets in the car furious. Mute didn't notice her indisposition. Cheerful, he plays the prepared CD. Good eeeevening, my darling, I've been waiting for you as if. Waiting, as if you hadn't parked in the biggest puddle in the area, she bursts out. There's water in my shoes. I'll go change. I can't recall a time you've been a gentleman and opened the door for me. Music's so loud my mom can hear it from a three-block distance. Go girl, she tells me, your man's here, he has had that cassette deck since high school. Pardon me, darling, you know music used to be my life. Until you showed up.

Radu Gramatovici
Aren't you going to put some music? Music? Asked Petru. Yes, I tell him from my end of the table. That's how they do it in movies. It's quiet now, you can hear the grinding noise the knife makes on the China plate, and then the room is filled with music, powerful music, divine, as we enjoy the juicy steak. Put another one on the grill, Petru tells the cook without replying to me. He walks out and immediately after that, a terrifying scream is heard from the next room. It was only after that Petru looked me in the eyes and said: That's the music I enjoy.

Paul Dârvariu
She was the youngest one in Alegretto Chorus. I think they placed her in the first row just for the setting. My neighbour from the 8^th floor asked me to take his daughters to Sala Radio. Hardly had I placed them on the backseat when they started singing. I could barely notice my daughter's soft voice. Suddenly, the older ones stopped: Shut up, your voice is not for singing. Simona started crying. I felt so sorry for her. I turned the car around and stopped in front of the building, got the two little naughty girls off and handed them to their mother. I was relieved.

(Translated by Cristina-Andreea Dobre / 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.