Who Put the Tavern on the Road

Iulia Stavre
He looked at himself in the mirror, foggy either from the steam or from his gaze. I'm rather good-looking. He wet his hands at the sink, ran his right hand through his hair, fixing it. Every day, he gave himself a reason to drink. Today, he drank so that he would have the courage to ask Nina to be his wife properly, in town, at dinner, with the ring in a red velvet box. Sure of himself, unsteady on his feet, he walked out of the pub's restroom. Nina was making out on the dance floor, her body pressed tightly against some guy. Stupid cow, she has no idea what she missed out on, he told himself and ordered a vodka.

Ina Moldoveanu
Am I to blame, Costică? I don't even look at them. Why, I prayed the Rosary, I begged God to protect me and to keep me from sinning again, because poor Costică is waiting for me with the table set. And Nelu Vărzaru shows up, asks me to raise a glass to his mother's soul. Y'know, she was a huge drunk, that one. And one glass turns into two, then five, then ten, because she just couldn't get enough, it's clear that she was parched, \'cause I didn't get drunk at all, husband. And you know that woman wouldn't drink just anything, it was either brandy, whiskey, the good stuff, until the pub owner closed. I signed up for the six-months-alms as well.

Dan Banu
They had quarrelled badly. The ground had crumbled beneath them, swallowing the past and the present had sharpened like the point of a blade. They were young and stupid. He had run off and walked into the first bar he could find. He downed shot after shot. The world was diluting like watercolour in the rain. When he came to, it was light outside. The seed of forgiveness had grown in him like a poplar tree. He ran back through a different city, different streets, different trees, different people. When she opened the door, he was startled by her fine wrinkles. Two children grabbed her by the hand. Are you looking for something, sir, the man standing behind her had asked.

(Translated by Alina-Alexandra Șovar / 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.