Who Put the Tavern on the Road

Iulia Stavre
They said their final words from a love that the years had made toxic. She asked him to leave the keys under the flowerpot by the entrance. She met her friends in a trendy club. Among restless, drunk, loud young people, frantically dancing to the blaring music, her sadness stood out. The girls' laughter and the ice in the whiskey made the pain in her heart melt away, fade like a tainted watercolor. She was awakened by the chirping of a little bird at dawn. She was on the bench in front of the apartment building.

Arthur Ianoși
Apparently, there's a village in our country, I won't give a name, but let's call it Pietroșița, that has a mayor, I won't say who, let's call him Leonard. What's for sure is that he has been tending the village's souls for quite some time, convincing them year after year that he is The Chosen One. Today, in an intimate setting at the pub next to the Town Hall, Leo's emotions could no longer be contained when, with his right hand, he stretched towards his left hand the pedestal of thick, unbreakable glass. The title of Honorary Citizen. With tears in his eyes, the mayor treated himself to a drink.

Camil Popescu
Neacșu was sipping his drink in a tavern in Câmpulung when the postman handed him a letter from the wife of the Brașov jude[1], with whom he had fallen head over heels in love. Oh My God, marveled Neacșu, thus inventing modern English. Oh-la-la, he exclaimed, formulating the first French interjection. Mamma mia, he rejoiced, this time in Italian. He began to say in Romanian, Hai să-mi bag[2], but the bartender interrupted him: Are you sure those are the first words you want to attest in the Romanian language? Neacșu sighed and rephrased: I pak dau știre.
(Translated by Larisa Marta Mreană / 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.