Twelfth Night

Sanda Burță
He puts the blanket over his head, but their screams are way more powerful. Once, during the Chemistry class, Ana spilled sulfuric acid by mistake. She quickly wiped it with a piece of cloth, but all that was left of it was a brown stain. Now, her soul feels like that stain. Every night she writes down a wish and puts it in a jar. They say that's how the wishes reach the Universe. To love herself again. That the bitch dies, that mom would stop crying, that dad won't leave, that he'd love me. That he'd see me. All of that is in vain. She tears up the notes, and writes down the last one. She breaks the jar into pieces and takes a shard in her hand. That there would be peace.

Ancuța Clim
It happened after the Decree. I had had an abortion, but despite all the hitting, I haven't said a word. No, no. They arrested me. I spent the night alone in the cell on the first night. On the second, Tița came. On the third: I spent some time in Saveni too. On the fourth: my daughter's going to study medicine, yes. On the fifth: Why are you here? Oh, dear. On the sixth: do you know my daughter's pregnant? On the seventh: Who helped you with the abortion? On the eighth: the girl's future. On the ninth: I'm begging you. On the tenth: Dr. Miu. On the eleventh night, I didn't say a word. On the twelfth, the guardians, smirking: they arrested Miu.

George Dometi
A lullaby started to come out from a plush toy. It was a clinking melody that echoed into the chill night. The sound of the clear notes reverberating in the headstones around was way too powerful and disturbing. The curved blade of the shovel crashed the sound into the ground until it went away. Then it started digging it, although it was dry. On every hit, the red wooden coffinbled through stray splinters. Nothing was to be found under the piles of satin, which should've hidden his own child. A dozen nights for nothing.

(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 April 2024, the group has 12,860 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.