The Important Thing Is to Participate

Anca Postescu Stancov
That's the way his grandmother had taught him, and of course he also loved it. The emotion of preparing for contests was enough, he didn't want a medal. Math and informatics Olympiads, fishing, cooking, running contests. Until one day, he lined up at the start of a cross-country race and realized he wanted to win. Amazed by this new feeling, he ran so hard, he took first place. In her heart. Of the girl who called 112[1] and, blushing, said to him when she saw him with his ankle brace: you know, for me you are the winner.
Ina Moldoveanu
I had never played golf and had no idea how to hold a club. But since I had been invited and my friend was already in love with one of the guys, I couldn't refuse. They were both prize-winning, raised on the field, as one of them claimed. Strangely, he didn't have a rabbit face, though he was chewing gum like he was gnawing carrots. They showed me a set of moves and I told them it was child's play. They smiled maliciously. The thing is I beat the grandmasters. Left them high and dry. The next day they refused to play. One had a sprain.

Florina Hegedüs
I'm my own boss. Until I get to work. The boss calls me to report. Meanwhile he's on the phone with his boss. In the evening the city's boss invites the company to a party. Here, we auto-boss ourselves by dancing, sipping refreshing cocktails soaked in alcohol. The bushes are bustling with bodies. We get a surprise gift, a firework show from the best boss. It's gorgeous. It's, it's like a giant mushroom. In the morning we're brothers, all of us. A different kind of boss, but a boss, says mow the lawn. I discreetly take my lipstick out of the sleeve of my white robe, put lipstick on, then participate.

(Translated by Corina-Alexandra Belu / 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.