Stories to Be Read at the Train Station

Gabriel Rusu
When, finally, Dad decided to get a divorce, we breathed a sigh of relief. I felt a sense of peace after years of this individual coming home at midnight and being loud as a train, waking up all the neighbours. From the position of a former wife, Mom showed him one last time what a real woman is. She threw his clothes out the front door. Each shirt was clean, neatly ironed, and hung on its hanger. The neighbours, astonished, whispered among themselves. If they had been in her place, they would have thrown them in the mud. He would never meet a woman like that again.

Sara Ungureanu
The coffee burned her hand, too hot for the cup she had been given. Yesterday's newspapers were still on the table, but she started reading one. Nothing she didn't already know, but on one page, someone had drawn horns on Șoșo[1]. Below, someone else had called her the She-Devil. In big pink letters, another person had written the Terminator. She burst out laughing. She rummaged through her bag and found a green pen. She needed to leave a nickname as well, maybe it would cheer someone up. She ended up writing Russian Tank. She threw away what was left of her coffee and ran to catch the train.
Sorin Rizeanu
It was one of those weeks with two Mondays. He, in a coat too thin for October, somewhere halfway between a boy and a man, uncomfortable in both roles. A cold wind was blowing in from the north and, without knowing how, he found the courage inside him that he wouldn't have known he had. Hey there, pretty girl, he said to the girl with the suitcase, are you coming or going? I'm exploring, she replied, her voice muffled by the raindrops. She raised a hand towards him, her long, pale fingers fluttering lightly like a tired butterfly. Come under the umbrella.

(Translated by Eduard Mihai Uretu / 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.