The Two Parts

Monica Bologa
My bed linens are double-sided, the bedspread too; almost all my blouses can be worn on both sides-a kind of two-in-one. I once dated twin brothers, identical faces, different kisses. My truth always has two sides; I turn it around in conversations, like coating schnitzels in flour. Today, while waiting in line for bagels, a gorgeous man approached me. I want to make love to you, he said, straight out. OK, but you should know something about me: I have two sides. No problem, he replied. I have a wife.

Alina Ilie
The sun's rays caught her sleeping in a hammock of peonies. Her curled lashes, shading two little black peppercorns, gradually welcomed the light. Hypnotized by the source of life, she stretched her seemingly delicate body and opened her wings, embracing the world. She shook her tiny head to wake up and noticed, with wonder, a smouldering crack in the ground. She slipped quickly to find out what was hiding on the other side of the world. Dusty black moths burst out from the narrow gap, and fiery serpents, with sharp, threatening tongues, slithered toward her.

Lucian Pătru
Mișu the Beetle had decided to be irresistible only during his lunch break, when his neckline, barely revealing his Adam's apple, allowed him to gulp down three pickled beets. Before, he looked like a demon, and afterward, like Sarsailă[1] in person. In his free time, he was married to Mia, whose house he wouldn't enter without a "God protect me." At work, however, he had started to sweet-talk Floarea, from whom he repeatedly received a "Get lost!" He'd become a source of gossip among everyone, as he was the highest-paid. Well, of course-he did overtime, the scoundrel.
(Translated by Ioana Levîrdă / 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 November 2024, the group has 13,480 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.