The Bell Rings

Monica Ciurea
In the evening, the power would go out. We'd light the oil lamp in the kitchen. Dinner would simmer on the stove. On the table was Călinescu's History of Romanian Literature, acquired underhand. My mother was reading stories about writers. My father was grading tests. My ears were tuned to my mother's stories, but my eyes were on my father's logarithms. With teachers for parents what else could I have become? I'm 30 now, and after the fourth period, I dash out of school. My child waits for me at the kindergarten. Mooom! he chimes happily, Today the teacher asked what our parents do. The others didn't really know, but I said, My mom's a school girl.

Rozalia Cristea
Grandpa was an agricultural mechanic at the village farm. His body was frail, having returned from the front lines. Grandma was a fierce woman, running the household and caring for me, a child marked by fate. One day, the cow gave birth to a beautiful, playful little calf. Daily, we roamed all the yard, she with her little bell clinking around her neck, me following along. In the evening, I was the first to the milk mug, she the second, straight from her mother. We grew up together. On Sunday, I ran to greet Joiana, and tears bursted out. They had returned from the market, only with her memory, her little bell.

Paul Dârvariu
I never liked school. In first grade, mom took me on the tram, and the tram was crowded, my backpack was heavy, and mom was flustered because she'd be late for work. I didn't like the teacher either. She was plump, wore glasses, and smacked her ruler against the desk. Georgel had better luck: Miss Cristina was blonde, smelled nice, wore short skirts, walked around the classroom, and ruffled the boys' hair. I got dad to transfer me from Class 2B to Class 2D. From then on, he would drive me. I think he'd enjoy getting his hair ruffled, too.

(Translated by Maria Loredana Constantin / 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.