Paul Dârvariu
Well, big deal. Do I not have the best visual memory? I do. Am I not the best street view user? I am. I'll be in front of your house in a blink. The one with lilacs at the entrance. The issue is different though. I lost the key. What do you mean, which one? The one for the belt. Which belt? The chastity one. What do I do? I need a locksmith. It doesn't work. I swore I wasn't going to let any man touch you. A knight keeps his oaths. I'll manage alone. I'll bring with a grinder or maybe an oxyacetylene flame.
Iulia Biro
I thought I could handle it, I have been there once before. I found the apartment building. And the entrance - how many other entrances could have a still decorated Christmas tree in March? The floor was somewhere between the 2nd and the 6th, as I was tired by the time I got to you and I get tired after the first 2 floors and I can't handle more than 5 at all. I knew the units. On the 3rd floor the family name was written on one of the doors, it wasn't that one. I knocked on the 4th, the police opened. They were waiting for a drug dealer and I had some weed on me. Was it 5 or 6? I should've called. Eh, the year would pass quickly.
Ionuț Tuhoarcă
I was walking with Tuțica through the woods. For the experience. I would get the chills everytime the wolves howled. Tuța asked me. What if the bear comes? We split. I go one way, you go the other. We'll see what it prefers. Chicken wing or ostrich leg. What if it comes after me? You tell it to eat you piece by piece. To leave some for later. It would be a shame since you are such a piece. What if it comes after me? You remarry. But the other guy should die unexpectedly as well. And you should stay with the cats. Then, said Tuța piously: God be with us!
(Translated by Alin-Marian Mărgescu / 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.