When Life Gives You Watermelons

Cecilia Fofiu
The weary sun prepares for bed in the hollow behind the Magura hill, leaving behind a few lazy rays. It's the end of another day of harvesting corn. Mica, tired, husks the last of the corn, hides the heap under the sack and walks slowly towards the hamlet. Eyes on a red bird hopping in her path, she trips on a dry stalk that barely holds a melon, which she has left lying there, unharvested. She tucks it under her apron, thinking of a cool snack at home. And that's how you came in this world, pumpkin, you emerged out of that sweet juicy golden melon core.

Daniel Popa
Mommy, did you spill your drink? Should she call him? It would take too long until he came home, until he left from where he was.No, there's no time. She looked at the little girl and smiled. Get dressed. She put some spare clothes in a bag. And in three minutes they were downstairs. That's what the app said. Mommy, doesn't two come after three? Now it says 4. 5. Why is it going up instead of down? The term is "decrease". Does that mean that it is left without creases? YEEES. But her scream betrayed her pain. The girl put her hand on her mom's belly. My darling little brother, you're not even out of here and you're already pissing off our mom? Is he coming? Yes.

Bogdan Sebastian Burjan
Summer is over. Before the 40 springs already gone. The poppies were blooming. From the morning dew. It snowed with big snowflakes. Sparse. They fell one by one. Like poppy petals that never faded. He held her already trembling and cold hand. As he had held it then, before they met. She forced herself to smile too. And her dull eyes grew duller and duller. A glimmer now and then. Almost gone. Seconds passed slowly. You've always been in a hurry. You were always driving me crazy. You, too. Always.

(Translated by Mihaela Stănilescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year I / Corrected by dr. Nadina Vișan, edited 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.