Bronze

Gheorghiță Mircea
I have loved competition, in the shape of contests, since I was watching the Olympics from my chair at the families that had a TV. Then, outside, we would make the teams. Us boys were running, jumping, wrestling, knocking each other down, judo didn't exist yet. The girls offered the medals and kissed the winners. Everything was good, until Doina was chosen to give the bronze medal and kiss the boy in third place. Then the weird competitions started. At the running competition, the boy in first place would randomly get tired, the one in second would trip, and you could see the horror on the third one's face.

Sorin Rizeanu
She has a golden character and a big bosom, the more you rub her, the brighter she shines. He's a bronze statue, used as a toiler for pigeons. She is craved by everyone, he's only good as gun barrel - explosively dumb. She's fashionable. He's old-fashioned furniture, with no ambition but with pieces of coloured glass in the secret drawer. She brings together the well-known literates - at the same pharmacy. And still? He has a wing on the left side, she has a wing on the right side. When she turns off the violet light dawn, he brings her a pizza and a hug.

Tina Dublea
I used to lik it when the wind blew. I would stand still, looking at everyone who was mumbling through their teeth. Something about crosses, dead relatives, saints. Something with Fs. And at how they would even bite out of me, if they could. It was the same when it rained. Foam at the mouth. Something with Fs. It was the same when it was sunny. The sweat was drowning their souls. Something with Fs. Nothing was okay. How could it be when everything is a rush and the only thing that matters is the appearance. Fine, I thought, with calmness, until a feathered loser used my nose as a toiled and I got sick.

(Translated by Cristina-Paula Grosu / 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.