09.11.2024

Paul Dârvariu
I've never found peace again. The first sign was less than a month later: what if I moved in with you since I can't afford rent? Second one: what if you took your toiletry kit to the kitchen? You'd shave while you made breakfast. Next one: what if we switched places? I can't stand sleeping against the wall. Yesterday's was too much: what if Mom moved in? Miss What-If, let's run it all back. I'd make sure not to show up for our first date.

 David Brescan
The dead in the city cemetery rise from the tombs, zoo bunnies turn into wolves, spaceships clatter through the sky like Easter eggs, 13 black cats chase each other on brooms, huge mushrooms of smoke rise on the horizon, the solar eclipse is permanent, buildings collapse like in '77, the seas merge, the world breaks apart, it rains fog and carbide, people explode, guts and limbs fly through all the trees, the world's over again, I turn the camera off, I pull up my pants, you'll do, lassie, I'll hire you.

 Mira Wolf
You've learned that I snore like a tractor and that I push you off bed like Atilla thirsting for expansion. We both love cats, but I'm allergic. Owl that I am, I lie goggle-eyed at night and vandalize the fridge, and you're happy for me in the morning and make do with a cup of coffee. Right now you sleep like a hostage in the living room, like a husband on the verge of divorce, and I curl up in my big fluffy bed, holding the stuffed cat you got me from Jumbo store. Love is sacrifice.

(Translated by Adela Neacșu / 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.

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