Hopless, Oblivious People and Their Journals

Cristina Căliman
Since I met Mirela, I forget in ways I never have in my entire life. I forget that I have a wife who patiently waits for me. I forget that I have a child who suffers because his father ignores him. I forget that I have a beautiful home, lovingly built with my wife, saving penny by penny and working side by side with the masons. At work, I forget to submit projects on time. With my mind on Mirela, I forget where I'm going, my keys, my phone, my glasses. Often, I even forget to eat. And, worst of all, in this incurable forgetfulness, enslaved by passion, I forget myself.

Ana Ludușan
He stands leaning on his staff on the crest of the hill, between earth and sky. He sees himself jumping from a bridge, in the battles of Stalingrad. Two brothers and two brothers-in-law perished there. When he returned home after five years of war, he found his yard stripped bare of animals and possessions. He rebuilt everything from the ground up, even restoring the proud Lipizzaner line. The collectivization emptied his yard again, taking the land with it. He raised his children, overcoming it all once more. His soul is at peace; he has forgotten all the suffering. It's time to rest beside his Măriuca in the graveyard.

Dan Banu
Seen through the window, the street appeared under the downpour like an impressionist painting, with streaks of color dripping onto the wooden frame. It was 6 PM, and the rain showed no signs of stopping. Neither did the feeling that had followed him since dawn-that he had forgotten something. Suddenly, he remembered everything: how he had opened the door for her, how he had invited her to sit on the chair in the garden, how he had gone inside to bring her water and a bit of jam. He ran to her. She was still there, sitting in the rain for 8 hours. He took the scythe from her hands, and death collapsed among the grass like ashes.

(Translated by Teodora Anghelachi / 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.