Clean Air

Cristian Nedelcu
He had walked out with nothing but his clothes on. From his own home. He only took the pack of cigarettes and slammed the door shut. He had forgotten his lighter. To hell with it, he thought, but not about the lighter. He went out into the street. A breath of fresh air. That's what he needed. The coolness of the night revived him. He couldn't go on like this anymore. Around him, emptiness. Naturally, it was three in the morning. Somewhere, a dog barked at its own loneliness. He asked the Militia patrol for a light. The officer gave it to him. The soldier didn't smoke. He finished his cigarette, went back inside, and told her: pack your bags, you're leaving today.

Iulia Vîși
I open the window, and above me, domestic violence echoes. Thrown pots, plates shattered into sobs. From the balcony to my right comes the smell of bread fried with egg, chamomile tea prepared by a grandmother. On the ground floor, a student is smoking away all the pages meant for exams; the air reeks of burnt brains. The happiest floor has the scent of a baby, with honey and orange blossom water tucked under tiny finger nails. I take a deep breath, for the next scream. In the basement, a family lights a candle. Strange how people wait for a final breath, even when our hearts are still beating.

Alex Caragian
Winter came early in his life, and he had to cover himself with a blanket of snow over the earth's surface. When he felt warm, he would stick out a leg and kick the gathered birds that were dropping at his head. When he was cold, he would take his hand bones out and hold them in the mouth of a dog until they warmed up, but only enough to produce steam. Then he would bury them again, smell them, and take a deep breath, letting the steam evaporate between his ribs. A beer would have been nice, he said to the gravedigger, but where would he get one? Not a chance...

(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.