I Lost Your Address

Diana Cornea
The brain was lying limp in the case with eyebrows raised in wonder. He thought in English and that only during his spare time. A lethal lady pushed it slightly with her forefinger. It doesn't bite ma'am, said the skinny Argentinian, laughing. The lady sat comfortably and fearfully whispered: But does it hurt? Not at all. The blade flashed quickly and the head fell onto the sandstone tiles, he mumbled a swear, trying to escape he bumped into the other one and he melted when he heard: oh, I've been looking for you for such a long time, no phone, no address, where were you?

Yuka Brevi
You have to test the girl. It's simple. You give her a banana. If she crunches on it like a cucumber, while she tells you all sort of stuff, you take her as a wife immediately. It doesn't matter if she talks with her mouth full cause she ain't Elizabeth at a dinner party. If she eats it delicately and at the same time, she looks at you straight in the eye, no matter how brutally your underwear squeezes you, you forget her address. Let someone else take her. That's what real men do, son. This is an old teaching, not really from the times of Neagoe[1], it's kind of from the time when bananas were brought here by boat in the harbour.
Monica Aldea
They crossed the city onbicycles. Grig was going to Canada, Sânziana was going to study with the famous painter Giovanni Zarella. A year passes quickly, like this summer shower, said the girl suddenly, or like a dream. When you return you will see my first paintings. 20 years since then. He never stopped searching for her. The phone vibrated and he received the meeting place with the private investigator. He reached a painting workshop. In the display windows he saw a painting of two young people on bicycles. In the bottom corner he read trembling - Grig and Sânziana - immortality.

(Translated by Jessica-Polixenia-Cristiana Copilaș / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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.