Clean Air

Dan Banu
I turn off the light and wait. I can feel them scuttling around, hear their claws clicking on the parquet, trying to climb the bedposts. I feel them inside me, in my stomach, my blood, my brain. I switch on the lamp and hit with the crystal vase. There's no one there. I turn on all the lights, go downstairs, step out into the garden, and they follow me. I can feel them, but I can't see them. I run to the stream. The flow of water and the stillness of the grass erase them one by one. I go to sleep. Tomorrow, I will pour all my fears into the tin box for the demons, as you pour milk for the cats.

Eduard Baranovski
I come back to my senses. Through the hole in the roof, fresh mountain air blows in. The rustling of the forest awakens the predator in me. I feel for the pocket knife in my boot and prepare for the assault on the brutes who kidnapped me. After taking them out, the Rover car will carry me off into a glorious sunset. I listen, I'm ready. The henchman unlocks the door, I spring like a coiled spring. With a dull blow, Tolea takes down the skinny figure. What do you think, partner? He had a pocket knife with tweezers. Iura let out a short laugh. What can I say? Writers. Then he planted a kick in his groin. Where's the money, Bukovski?

Paul Dârvariu
My husband got an apartment from the factory, right across from the Pioneers' Palace. The neighbourhood is nice. Yesterday, I went to check it out. Shops, a market, a high school. But the best part is the park across the street. Last night, we slept wrapped in the scent of linden blossoms. At dawn, I was jolted awake by a terrible stench. I nudged Grigore: You glutton, did you fry pork cracklings again? Cocuța, I've got bad news for you: those cracklings weren't fried by me but by the rendering plant on the Dâmbovița. And they're not pork, they're dog.

(Translated by Claudia Garofina Greculeac / 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.