The Two Parts

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
We split everything equally. I want the penthouse. And I want the house. I take the cottage. The bungalow. The land. The cars. The companies. What else do we have? The dog. There is no way I'm giving up the dog. I was the one who walked him. I took him to Disney. I took him with me to Hawaii. I want custody and I'll give you visiting hours. That's it. Are you sure you're not forgetting anything? Absolutely not. Who gets the child? Oh, we are young, we will rebuild our life, our partners want their own children, let's see if the grandparents will take him. I can go to the dog shelter, said the kid, sitting forgotten in a chair.

Radu Gramatovici
Have I told you that you're my other half? He was planning to leave her after the show. Everyday, answered him the assistant that was also his wife. Cheers broke out. The magician presented the box and the assistant went in. Everyone went silent. The sharp blade cuts the box in half. A sigh was heard. The magician went closer but something caught his eye and he hurried to open one of the sides. The bust of the woman he was going to run away with tonight was trembling spasmodically. The roar engulfed the crowd. Now you have more than one half, said the drifting voice.

Adriana Patroi Miu
Put the scalpel down. I know that you're a doctor. Beyond the thorax there are two gates. If you go through the first one, towards the right atrium, you will be submerged in the abyss. The tumour settled in there, wrapped up like in a cocoon in the bitterness of silence, in the useless wastefulness of moments, in a hopeless darkness. Through it the blood pulses like lightning with the strength of the fearless warrior that throws himself into an unfair battle. The other side belongs to you, clean and soft. In it is reflected my unfelt joy. I love you. I don't know why I had to get sick for you to find out.

(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.