Stories to Be Read at the Train Station

Andra Toropoc
That was the first time I had ever heard of Sevens[1], when I saw three soldiers sitting on their wooden cases, playing cards. A man with no legs was crawling on the platform - one of the soldiers gave him money, another an apple; he thanked them and suddenly fixed his gaze on me. I felt embarrassed, so I quickly handed him what I was holding - Volume 2 of Winnetou. I thought I saw a tear forming in the corner of his eye, but before I could figure it out, my grandmother hurried me along, the train was coming. What was I going to do all the way to Bucharest, she scolded me. I fell silent, pressing my nose against the window of the train on the move; beyond those khaki silhouettes, there was that man, holding the book open. I swear he was reading.
Elia Ghinescu
I close my eyes and I can see myself with dad. At the Royal Station, he would lift me in his arms and get me off the train. I never knew whether the train went further, but I never cared to learn anyway. I would carefully rock my one-eyed doll to sleep; years later, out of that great care, a mother was born. I could see mountain son the horizon, it was winter, and the mountains were white. I would shade my eyes with my hand, gazing at them longingly. Dad, those mountains are so far away, can we reach them too? He would smile at me as he wrapped the scarf round my neck. Would you like an eclair, princess? Yes, dad.

Anca Chimoiu
You either catch or miss a train. When you miss it, you can read something, if you feel like it. But I'd rather take a nap. I lie down on a bench and fall asleep. When I don't, I just stay there, with my eyes closed. I wrap myself in the newspaper, so that others can have something to read. Some people are like an open book. Others, like a newspaper spread all over the place, full of unreal stories. But instead of a picture, it is their head. The texts are etched on their face, their arms, their neck. Who has time to read them all? Not even I. Wait, I think I can hear the express train approaching. The conductor is getting off at the next stop.

(Translated by Mara Scoroșanu / 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.