Among Strangers

Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
I don't know how long I've been waiting near this fence. People passing me by give me strange looks. Don't panic, I'm not one of those obsessed women, I find myself almost shouting at them. My heart blows up somewhere inside my brain. What if I didn't do the right thing? What if I made the wrong choice? Look, here they come. Swarming all around like an army of ants. I can't see Vlad. Where can he possibly be? Oh, there he is, on the steps. He has his hand over his eyes. A lady comes, embraces him and they vanish together. I'm crying my eyes out. I wish he were a pea bean in my womb once again, safe and sound from the evil world.

George Dometi
I had been refusing her for five months, she had been walking the streets to find me, left me notes, she had found out my address, but I didn't accept her coffee dates. But then, something made me say, Alright, let's see how far we can go. They were the best 3 years of my life. One day, when I was at a restaurant with her friends, waiting for her, her disease cut off any future. She came, kneeled and cried incessantly. Know what I regret? That I didn't take advantage of the first coffee date.

Arthur Ianoși
I hide better. I tolerate hypocrisy, knowing at least they're not mine. Among strangers, even the mirrors are smaller, I can't see my flaws in their true size. Nor can display windows catch my reflection, because I don't have enough time to walk around the shops. Maximum at the tobacco shop on the corner. And at that restaurant of the Indian who rented me my room. This rent is killing me. I also have to send money home. I learned how to roll a cigarette. Work makes you a great man, that's what my grandpa used to say. Here, all the people are small. I work my fingers to the bone days on end. Everything's small. Only the longing is great.

(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.