Magnolias

Arthur Ianoși
The annual contest, Flowers, Girls, Firms or Students, from the Garden of Ghethsemane, is ongoing. The jury is made up of King Lear and the Pansy Fairy. The race is tighter than a Gordian Knot. The howlers are brawling, almost as equals. Martin Radu King - I had a dream in vain, Ionuț M Hrușcă - A thrill of flowers, Alina Dumas, daughter - The Lady through Magnolias and, obviously, the contender with the destined name, Adrian Enache's illegitimate sister, the unmatched Flori E. The olive trees from the garden are waiting for the press. The oil press.

Gheorghiță Mircea
Hello, sir. Do you have magnolia saplings? Yes. What kind? Do you have Jade Lamp? Of course. Heaven Scent? Sure. Stellata? Obviously. Yellow Lantern? We do. Watermelon? Yes. Black Tulip? You bet. One Stellata please. My pleasure. Living space certificate from the building administration? Of course, here. Do you have the workplace certificate? Sure, this is it. From the city hall? I do. From the syndicate? Yes. From the base organization secretary? Here's the file. Good, everything's fine. You're scheduled on May 22nd 2025. We'll give you the soil now.

Ionuț Tuhoarcă
Jean Constantin[1] is gone. He passed away, poor guy, and how we used to laugh. Gheorghe Dinică[2] is gone. The tramp of my life. Something with Raj Kapoor. Dem Radulescu[3] is gone. The perch. B.D at the mountains and at the sea. Draga Olteanu[4] is gone. They're gone, poor souls. Stela[5] is gone. I'm not that sad about her. Once, during our cabarets, I was introduced to a young lady. Gracious. I found out later. When I was no longer drunk. It was Arșinel[6]. In drag. And I wasted a carnation on him too. Back in those days you couldn't find begonias.

(Translated by Raluca Sălcianu / 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 May 2024, the group has 13,000 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.