Laura Stanciu
At Bookfest, a vigilant reader came across a booth where a debut author's book was being launched. The prose writer seemed charming, but the title raised an alarm: Me, Two Women, and No Dog. She searched for the dog chapter after chapter but couldn't find any trace of it. She immediately contacted the Animal Protection. I know who the offender is. Police, fines, and prison are written all over him. Article 25, Sanctions, Law 205/2004. He's facing a minimum sentence of 3 months to 1 year. While handcuffed, the writer managed to shout, It's on page 251.
Daniela Toader
Sometimes I live in a small four-story building from before the Revolution, other times, I take an Uber every evening, and sometimes I run into the same driver. Other times, I blast the music in my head at full volume, sometimes I can afford to do that, living alone in a house with thick walls. Other times, I feel like I'm being watched intently by the weirdo on the sixth floor of the building across the street. Sometimes I feel like calling the police, telling them I'm being stalked by an obsessed person, officers. Other times, I dial 112 and call the fire department. Sometimes it's good that I exist; other times, it's not.
Bogdan Mihai Bati
I never thought I would love two women. I fell in love with the first one 20 years ago. I called her Ladybug. I courted her. I proposed to her. We got married. We danced and rejoiced for ourselves. Life toughened us and turned our hair gray. After our love blossomed, I began to love the second woman. Theoretically, she's not yet a woman. It all happened eight years ago, and it pleasantly surprised me. I met her when she weighed 3.2 kilograms. She came wrapped up, carried by the nurse, and I dressed her in the clothes that Ladybug had prepared. I called her little Turnip.
(Translated by Teodora Anghelachi / 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.