Flood 2.0

Răzvan Drăgoi
Instead of bashing someone's head, I might as well get on with, what's it called again? Work. Work isn't that hard, but it's a waste of time. I drag myself out of bed, wash up, drink coffee, and leave for work. Lord have mercy, oh wait, the other job, the one with a flood of paperwork waiting for me, and I think of it as feminine, I have my reasons but I'm not telling. After that, I come home depressed and tired, sleep again, go back to work, 80 years. He was such a good guy. Who, him? Forget it. I've made up my mind. Better to bash heads. To give in head, because I'm classy.

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
Water began to flow from the walls of all the temples, as smooth as an unspoken dream. At first, no one noticed, but soon the two rivers, separated since the birth of the world, merged, rising together. Noah and Naamah, aware of the secret of the two primordial forces, joined to create, divided to learn, prayed to prevent the inevitable. But the waters, growling from the depths, would not cease. It's the echo of the first separation, whispered Naamah. Two had become one, embracing the world in the thought that came before Genesis.

Sonia Ungureanu
What's this, huh, up at the crack of dawn? I asked. You'll see, grumbled Grandpa, slamming the door. Grandma muttered something about fate and luck, then went back to her cleaning. At daybreak, I sneaked out. Grandpa was puffing on a hand-rolled cigarette, staring at the mulberry tree near the ditch. Wind won't break it, that's for sure, but everything's falling off it. Below, he'd laid out straw mats, and plump, juicy mulberries, purple-red and as thick as fingers, all were piling up together. This year a flood is coming, he muttered. We'll fill the big barrel. I could already sense risk 2.0: drunkenness incoming. Grandma cursed under her breath.

(Translated by Maria Loredana Constantin / 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.