The Man We Need

Paul Dârvariu
We agree on this: what would we do without him? It's true that the dependency is mutual. He hired Steluța as his secretary, and he authorized me to represent him during inspections in the counties. Yesterday, I came back earlier than usual. I ran into him in front of the elevator: You don't show up at the office much, Mișu. I brought you your bonus. I rushed into the apartment. Steluța, wearing nothing but underwear, holding an envelope: The Boss just brought you your loyalty bonus. I felt relieved. He wasn't lying, poor guy. I should be ashamed for doubting him unjustly.

Ina Moldoveanu
Do you really think he can convince everyone that it's for their own good? Absolutely. I've tested him. The role fits him like a glove. He seems empathetic, he's intelligent, an eccentric manipulator, shows altruism, but he'll walk over corpses for supremacy, a hefty salary, and a leadership position. That sounds more like the profile of a psychopath. These days, that's considered a strength of a powerful person. Apparently, his wife committed suicide because of him. Don't nitpick the perfect candidate. He idolized her; she was just a crazy woman who swallowed a handful of pills.

Elena Fermuș
My parents have lost it. They insist that they have to find the one for me. I've hit forty and still nothing. They nitpick every guy I bring home. They slaughter some chickens from the yard, cook up a meal, and invite them over to inspect their manners. Then the gossip starts: that one chews with his mouth open, the other one smacks his lips, one's missing a tooth, another has a wobbly wisdom tooth, blah, blah, blah, and in the end, it's always, he's not the right one. But come on, forget about the tooth, you can fix that with an implant. Look a little lower than the mouth! Maybe he is the right one.

(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.