Everything Started on the Shore

Cecilia Fofiu
From the dented tin bucket, he pulls out a string of small fish, takes the money silently, and then slips away again into a kind of catatonia, which he struggles to shake off when he feels another customer standing next to him. I'm strangely drawn to the young fisherman with a rugged beauty-tall, lean, with slender, well-defined muscles, deeply wrinkled skin, and eyes like deep water. He reacts to only one question: How's the sea today, Sergiu? He stares into your soul, smiles brightly, and says, If only the good Lord would dry up that damned water, I'd feel like a human being too.

Ana-Maria Butuza
Neptune, with a mustache of seaweed and a crown of corals, asked the sea to swallow the city of Heraklion, wishing for a true palace. However, the sea remained undecided. Everything changed when a mad hammerhead fish struck the water ceiling, disturbing the peace of the depths. Furious, the sea raised its waves, flooding the land: fish invaded the temples, dolphins rearranged the libraries, and octopi opened cafes. Since then, the king has always stirred the waters, searching for a queen on the shore. Finding none, he takes souls as tribute.

Elena Fermuș
When everyone leaves, she arrives, always dressed in white. She runs along the shore like an orphaned bride, begging the rain to sprinkle her dry soul with longing. She collapses over the dead shells and draws her story with fragile strands of sand: the red balloon taken by the waves, her advancing after it, mom and dad swept away by the currents in an attempt to save her, and finally, the god with a human face who pulled her from the water at the last moment. Then she turns her heart into a harp and accompanies the night. If only the god would come to save her once more. This time, from the shore.

(Translated by Miruna Dumitru / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by prof. dr. Nadina Vișan / Edited 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.