I Donate My Body to Science

Ionuț Tuhoarcă
A clown, his wig and a dog made out of balloons walked into a grocery store. I went in too. He took some pate and salami from the shelf. I got 4 eggs from free range chickens and bacon. He went to the register to pay. I followed him. The cashier asked for 30 lei. He gave her 40. The cashier gave him 10 lei back. Apparently he couldn't count. I paid by credit card. He made her a giraffe. She smiled. He pulled out a gun. He threatened us. I gave him everything I had. Including my wallet.

Cristian Nedelcu
His parents, friends, doctors encouraged him, told him to keep fighting, to be optimistic, urged him to trust in science, to be sure that one day a cure for the disease that was eating away at his body would be discovered. They were right. After years of torment, of useless treatments, after living so long with hope in his heart, the miracle happened. One shot a year, for the rest of his life, a million dollars a shot. Miracle, he told himself. To hell with science, donate my body to the earth.

Horațiu Dudău
as if whole wouldn't be right. I'd make those men in white lab coats not feel like men anymore. I'd make them feel not whole while they're tearing me to pieces. And I'd make the ladies in white lab coats blush and have dreams about me. I wouldn't have peace even after death. Plus, the liver wouldn't get any praise. They'd read my lost nights in it. And I don't know if they'd understand. I don't think my brain would be any good either. Abnormal in a normal world. Maybe the lungs. Full of smog in a man without smugness.

(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.