Attic for Rent. Serious Inquires Only

Oana Jindiceanu
Is it only you, sir? No, there's no problem, it's just that such a fine single man is hard to find, especially at such age. I could tell by your voice that you're a fine man. No, I am not looking for anything, God forbid, you're funny. I was just wondering. That's what I learned in school- to wonder. No, I've been a widow for quite some time. Thank you. Of course, you can come see the loft anytime. You want to view it now? Oh, you're nearby. Yes, of course, you can stay until it stops. Which wine do I prefer? You're bold. In this weather, merlot. It's pouring like crazy.

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
In the loft, there's a bed, a table, four chairs, a mirror. That's all. She was trying to understand why a woman would poison her own children and hang herself while watching them. She was the only one who had survived. She had heard of the curse of the owl. The restless of the night that turned mothers into birds of prey, feeding only on the oppressive silence of the unmarked breast. She had heard that the curse is inherited. A little owl was staring at her through the open window. She reached out and it sat on her arm. She caught it, begged for forgiveness and snapped its head. In her womb, the little life hit directly into the breathless bird.

George Dometi
The abandoned house at the border between fiction and reality was waiting for its potential tenants. A curious lady poked her nose into the eyehole in the wall, immediately feeling the breeze of dust coming from the drum. I offer sadness. It is accepted. But the man, controlled by feelings of resentment, stabbed holes into the slanted walls, leaving the room illuminated by the darkness within. The ad mentions that it is made of grey material with bumps and fold of convolutions, along with two neurons representing loyalty and love. Sold.

(Translated by Alina-Lorena Dulamă / 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.