On the Crosswalk

Dan Banu
The fact that their whole life together his wife had been having an affair with the neighbour from across the street and that eventually she had left after 30 years of marriage didn't bother him as much as getting fired from the University for inappropriate behaviour. That's when he had lost everything, his job, his friends, his self-esteem, his house. The grand passing between two pits of chaos, one spits on you and the other swallows you whole, a bunch of nonsense, a party I could cross off at anytime, he shouted at the scared pedestrians, standing on the edge of the bridge and swinging one leg at a time.

Florentina Enache
They won't stop for a moment's sake, he murmured. Why would they? She answered. Because rushing kills you faster, while stopping allows you to see better. See what? The things you have, the things you lose, simple things. You're right, she whispered staring at him. Although almost nothing is simple anymore. Are you sure? Will you give me your number? I can't. Of course you can, he smiled at her. Come on, then, grab my hand, the light isn't red anymore, it's green now. We cross together, now it's our turn. Don't bother too much, there's still time. When we reach the other side, you can also tell me what your name is.

Florentina Ghițescu
I read somewhere that vacations bring you a great amount of stress. They're number three on the list behind death and divorce. I still have to try the one on the first place, but I don't think I'm going to stress out too much, it's more for your loved ones, to be fair. I'm on vacation and I'm counting down the days until I have to go to work again. Not because I can't wait, but out of fear that my holiday is passing by too fast. It's raining and I had so many plans. Mom told me to pass by for Easter. Our whole family is coming. I almost got hit on the crosswalk, still counting the days.

(Translated by Laurențiu-Gabriel Niculae / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 June 2024, the group has 13,100 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, Monica Aldea, and Vlad Mușat. (Drawing by Adrian T. Roman)

Versiunea în română a acestui text se poate citi aici, în rubrica Ficțiuni Reale.