Răzvan Drăgoi
Am in a open relationsheep with meself. It's complicated. I've always been a complexed guy, having many faucets, which forced me to learn tha innards o' things as I gone. That's \'ow I got abscess to money, women and probabilities. I was helped by my rather bradpittian physik, muskly and barbered. That's why I decided to give my bod to siens, so them losers can learn \'ow to be suksesful in laif. Just liek the undeadly Guță or Ainstain - I keep getting \'em confused - would say: success is 99% muskles and 1% inteligens.
Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
He took the cleaver and nervously started to hit my body. I stood next to the table, frozen, albeit invisible. I wished I could've done something, anything, to make it my turn to hit him. My body, or rather what was left of it, was cut up by the time his students entered. They were wearing such a bright blue ensemble that I thought I was flying among the clouds. Wait, I really was above them, close to the ceiling. What did they hope to find beyond the flesh? I figured it out, they were looking for my soul. What a bunch of slaughtermen.
Ramona Ungureanu
I am a kindly man, just the way God intended. I rarely drink, only for occasions. For example, before a meal. It's a great occasion to fatten up a bit \'cause I'm super-thin and plum brandy makes you feel hungry. When my cousin Gicu comes over, it's an occasion to get merry, and when I get merry I go to the basement, \'cause my wifey doesn't really like my merry face. I'm opportunistic too. I'm on it and seizing it the moment I find an opportunity. When I went to the morgue to claim my mother-in-law and stumbled over this occasion and fell flat, they said it'll be easy, I already came embalmed.
(Translated by Adriana-Maria Botea / 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.