I write for a Living

Titela Durnea
Once, I thought it was possible. I scribbled wherever I had the chance. I loved Eliade, Cella, Călinescu. My Romanian teacher foresaw my success. Then down the hill came '89. The rEvolution was to penetrate into our blood, widening our horizons. A big nothing. The collapse of education, social climbers, trickery, those were the examples to follow. Who would read anymore? Maybe some jokes, the dull ones, those are the ones with success. I didn't earn my living through writing, but it lived inside of me. Six feet below, only my body will remain, my dear. I leave my life in this chest. Here's the key.

Cecilia Fofiu
I met Miha, my wife, through the matrimonial collums. You, soft, cultured, free creature who writes, I'm looking for you. I called her at once and we met at Someșu village, I had a gillyflower on me, she wore a purple scarf. Very cute. My eyes were sparkling like a wolf's. I order wine, a rum baba, and start carefully beating around the bush, I was talking to a huge writer. She was quiet and riant. Brother, I tell myself, maybe I seem like a dork. I take the conversation up a notch and offer to buy everything she had published, with an autograph at all costs. I type on the typewriter, I'm a typist, the hot chick justifies herself.

Adina Drag
He wanted to touch it and I let him. He dragged his fingers over the oil paint covered by tons of layers of golden leaves and he smiled. Please, be me eyes, because mine don't want to see. I told him that on a perfect square fit exactly two hugging people. Leave that. Tell me something real. I told him that I wrote the story Klimt's The Kiss for change, while the windows were still frozen and the pipes were screaming under the weight of the snow. Because it was dark. Because I like Picasso's The Kiss much more.

(Translated by Maria-Ilinca Darie / 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.