A Lucky Coin

Paul Dârvariu
I found it while I was digging the potatoes. I was absolutely convinced that I had struck gold. I had just read in an advertisement online: I'm buying a rare 100 lei[1]coin for 12,000 euros. I called immediately: I have the coin that you want. Is it a rare one? Of course, I have never found one like it before. No, man, I want to know if it's the one with a defect. What kind of defect? Well, don't you know that 24 pieces of a beardless Michael the Brave have been minted? Look at the penny. Does it have a beard? It does. Guys, who knows how to shave the beards off of coins? I pay well.
Ramona Ungureanu
You honestly don't have a dog? You have this face and you don't have a dog? This is impossible. How are you without one? You must have done something, you must have made some sort of mistake, you must have said that you wanted one and no one heard you. Let us hope that you at least have a small kitten at home and that it's waiting for you. That would be your saving grace. It'll be hard for you otherwise, you must have someone to hold in your arms, someone who possesses the air's breath and eyes to see the grass and the earth, or your soul will go crazy. I could see his torn shoes and a tail that was wagging itself. I left the sandwich on the bench. And 1 leu[1] too.
Titela Durnea
The infant is almost nine months old. A good Christian would have baptized him when he was two months old. She didn't have the money. Neither was she a believer. She figures that it doesn't matter anymore. She's nursing him out of pity for his mother and to satisfy the hags. They are only pharisaic women who teach their nieces not to talk to her, God forbid, for she's a harlot. Iosif, on the other hand, who forced her to do it, he's a saint. That is because he sits proud as a peacock in the church's pew on every Sunday. Irina takes turns to look at the split nipple and at the silver coin strapped to the infant's wrist by his mother. Let it bring him luck. She'll name him too.

(Translated by Oana-Elena Dragnea / 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 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.