Ice Cream

Ina Moldoveanu
I want a cup of fried anchovies and another with black garlic. You're embarrassing me, woman, the people are going to stare at us. It's drawn on the label on the window display. I know from Tilica, the neighbour, she ate here and said to me that I should come here too at Sevilla. You try the spinach one with wasabi. It's like my nettle stew. This wasabi is cousin with our horseradish Costică. I want a vanilla ice cream with chocolate; give me a break with your nonsense. Shut your mouth, at least have a cup of meatballs with sauce, since they don't have any polenta. You aren't getting anything else today.

Marian Bircea
Sweet as a panda bear, but terribly unlucky in love after three divorces. Born in winter, her parents named her Fulga[1]. She didn't enjoy the heat and the summer. She worked in cold storage warehouse. That's where I met her. Rumor had it she was frigid, although she was gentle, affectionate and had an irresistible charm. There are no unsatisfied women, only incompetent men. In her arms I felt like I was making love with an ice cream despite my torrid effort. In the end she melted in a smile.
Răzvan Drăgoi
On that day, the Universe's thoughts were only three. The metamorphosis of life on exoplanets, the transformation of gravitational waves into living matter and conspiring in helping Vasilică get a new Logan car, running on gas. Everything else was fine. Seeing that he has only three problems, two of which were simple, the Universe decided to flirt with a black hole that was twirling her pulsars and quasars, making him break in a sweat. All alone, my dear? the Universe asked. I'm frozen, she said. He hugged her. Vasile's Logan could wait a little longer.

(Translated by Maria-Ilinca Darie / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 August 2024, the group has 13,230 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.