With The Sun in My Eyes

Sanda Burță
After they had lifted his lifeless body and carried it away, she stood there, her hand over her mouth and eyes wide, staring at the spot where he had fallen off the roof of the house. It's raining, hop on the roof and change those tiles, she kept telling him, with that godforsaken mouth of hers. It kept raining as if there were a crack in the roof of the world until they lowered him into the grave. Then, an arid summer followed. The weather has gone nuts,she told herself. Today, it rained again. In the backyard, she was crouchingdown in a puddle and staring at the clouds and the overturned birds. When the sky laid a sun the size ofa yolk, she cried for the first time.

Marius Stan
The family is seated at the dining room table. Isabela, who has just turned four years old, is sitting at the head of the table. What a beautiful day. The mother is pleased that she managed to find a pineapple cake with whipped cream, the father is happy that his daughter resembles him, only the grandparents are baffled as to why her name is Isabela and not Maria or Dumitra. The cake lands on the table and everybody applauds, except for Isabela, who slowly begins to cry. What's wrong, dear? the father, worried, asks her. Isabela cries a little more, and then replies, The sun is in my eyes.

Răzvan Drăgoi
Bam, the sexy bomb was heard dropping, leaving passers-by and a dog howling at the moon. You could look at the sun, the lens of your eyes be damned, your cornea, your optical nerve, all that. But her, you just couldn't help looking at. Did it hurt when you fell from heaven? He gave her a lascivious look. That's all you've got? As far as pick-up lines go. But I can also say, Mind the doors, next up Obor station, platform on the right[1]. 50 euros, she said, with a slight undertone. 45, he replied. Fine. And they lived deeply, happily ever after, or something like that, anyway.
(Translated by Alina-Alexandra Șovar / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / 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 October 2024, the group has 13,400 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.