Among Strangers

Gheorghiță Mircea
May the dogs feed on the hearts of those who love strangers, with their modernism and depravity. These strangers whose agenda is to humiliate us with their elitism and their technology and with their democracy. The Voice of the People, that's democracy, and whoever opposes this idea is a traitor. We must all act as one; anyone who claims anything else must be eliminated. We must act without any prior reflection. No hesitation. We'll have time to think when we break free of the strangers, when the sun shines once again. God is Romanian. Does anyone not agree?

Cecilia Fofiu
The landscapes, the simple food you can get from the villagers and, most of all, their kindness - this is what I love about the countryside. Everyone says hello, even strangers; they ask about my health and how my family's been doing, they make me feel important. After a long week, me and my wife head to the countryside to recharge our batteries. We receive a warm welcome. A neighbour greets us, with his crooked smile, and happily observes: You like it here, don't you? We got clean air. He uses his pitchfork to stir the sizzling tar-covered pile at his feet, which spreads thick swirling smoke in the air.

Alex Caragian
He felt all their eyes staring at him, but he couldn't see them clearly because of the blinding light coming from the high ceiling. At least that's where it must have come from; he had been blindfolded when he entered the room and he couldn't see the source of the light. He could hear their voices, muffled by the masks they wore. He caught glimpses of them out of the corner of his eye, forming rows close to the pedestal beneath the white table underneath him. He smiled, which only made them whisper more. He still has to die, he heard before the wooden hammer shattered the murmur.

(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.