Mommy and Daddy

Horațiu Dudău
I yell. Out of pleasure, anger, boredom, hunger, cold, heat, anything. I like how these two get worked up when I raise my voice. The bearded one seems scared all the time. He starts shivering when I cry. He runs around like a headless chicken and doesn't know what to do. I can feel his paranoia. He watches over me until he falls off the chair, asleep. Then, I yell. He yells too, out of fright. When the long haired being shows up, we both settle. Her presence has a strange effect, it's like it's everything I desire in this world. The bearded guy seems extra to me. Especially when I suckle my milky.

Monica Aldea
Mihu had never met his parents. Hey kid, they'd pity him around the village, you're all alone in this world. He grew up and started making up stories. Mother was a teacher. I used to go hunting with father. I didn't keep my trophies inside, mother was too kind. At a flea market, Mihu found an old framed picture - a little boy and his parents. He took it, quickly shoved it inside his coat, as if the traveling merchant could have changed his mind at any moment. Next year, when he leaves for school in town, he'll tell his new friends - here, I was with mommy and daddy.

Răzvan Dițescu
One of his first memories is from back when he'd open his eyes and find them next to him. Him or her. One of them was always there. Only an arm's length away. They'd work in different shifts. Him at the spinning mill, her at the weaving factory. He didn't know what that meant, but he found it incredibly amusing. Spinning mill. Weaving mill. Spinning mill. Weaving mill. Hahaha. Me want too. Still, nothing compared to the mornings he'd wake up between the two of them. Both of them. The weaver on the left. The spinner on the right. Then he'd close his eyes again and dream a lovely dream.

(Translated by Andreea-Nicoleta Ban / 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 July 2024, the group has 13,200 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.