Indiscreet

Mirela A. Nica
She had been late. She quickly slammed the door behind her. Why're you looking at me like that? You really have no shame, you jerk. Granny gave your stomach a hard time and perhaps you would like to fill it with some tender meat. A hollow-headed sound was heard at the contact with the small basket bought from the Mall. He didn't even have time to come to his senses before he found himself tied at the mouth with a headscarf, with no right to reply and a gun to his head. Do you know who I am? You haven't got the faintest idea, you, Wolf. I am Red Riding Hood, but I identify myself as Hunter. Bye, bye, now.

Monica Ciurea
I've been peeking ever since I can remember, Lord. What kind of sin is that? I was the only one at kindergarten who saw how the teacher secretly filled her fist with white polka-dots and gulped them down. The next day, another teacher came. I was always spying on mommy behind the curtain. One day she bent over the balcony and daddy told me how much she wanted to fly. I am lifting up my grandma's eyelid right now. She's sleeping. What monstrosity of a sleep is this surrounded by so many candles? \'Cause I keep peeking at you, Lord, at the way you wrap our soul in a bundle in the threads of your fears.

Toni Mirică
At last, you made it, he told me. Looking kind of awful, he says. By the way, your purse is open. I see you still use Xanax. And fucsia matte lipstick, he laughed. I stared at my open purse and at the stranger who was talking to me. He was a grumpy guy, kind of dirty, who was smoking while he was talking to me. Who are you, I asked him astonished. Your guardian angel. Why're you looking like that? It wasn't easy to look after you. Everything overwhelmed me. I was close to lose my job because of you, that's why I'm drinking, silly one. You wouldn't put a Moet in that ragged purse.

(Translated by Irina Vild / 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 September 2024, the group has 13,320 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.