Among Strangers

Vlad Mușat
I am darkness. But light was my sentence. They gave me a heart. All feelings and regrets were thoroughly washed out of it. Still, some residue lingered. Like what comes out when last using an otherwise empty spray can. Too much light is just as blinding as too much darkness. Light always barks at darkness when it senses its blood; it wants to tear it apart. All darkness can do is run away. I hid in the veins of a soul. Might be my own, though I don't think it is. Everything is strange and alien to me. That's when I became the final howl of silence.

Daniela Toader
It's raining today. Again. The sky seems like a heavy blanket weighing over us. I'd start talking to myself if only to break the deep silence. I decide I'll lose my mind later, so I go get myself something sweet. The pâtisserie is crowded; everyone's in a chatty mood. A lady says something to me. I smile foolishly at her. She leaves. What can I get you? I point to a flan. The cashier explains something to me, I nod along. I smile foolishly and forget the change. I sit down on a bench and eat the eclair. The sky seems like a heavy blanket weighing over us. When I get back between the four walls of my room, I grab a pillow and scream into it.

Monica Bologa
I don't know a word of Italian, but I don't need many words to clean up the lawyer's office. For example, now I need a broom and I can't find it anywhere. I google it quickly and find out that the word for broom is scopa. I knock on the office door and confidently say: Voglio scopare. The lawyer pulls me towards the couch and starts passionately making love to me. I heard that the Italians were a passionate people. Only after did I find out that that scopare means I want to fuck. Spazzare, scopare, being happy is what matters.  

(Translated by Lucia-Alexandra Brînaru-Mitrofan / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan, Edited 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.