Stories to Be Read at the Train Station

Laura Stanciu
During the summer break, the CFR[1] had thousands of passengers, the majority dissatisfied of the conditions and the minutes that kept being added to the written promises on the panels of the train station. Where are you at? Have you passed Ploiești? The high-speed train 324 asked. I'm delayed, 235 said sadly. Don't worry, you'll catch up eventually. My ears are ringing from all the noise and I'm thinking only of her. She'll be staying in Sibiu until 13:05. The locomotive of the newest InterCity was speeding without knowing the way The Fast had heated up the rail for her.
Florentina Enache
Up on the seat, he held the toy close to his chest and chattered away. Thomas, I know why the trains are always sad. It's because of the locomotive. First of all, because it has no other way but to take only their path, carefully not to derail; then because it always has to drag too many coaches and besides it also has to stop at all these train stations. They are dusted and sad, like the adults. That's why you are so cheerful and brave: because you are a child-locomotive. I'll ask mommy to take Percy and Emily with us so we can all play. We won't grow up.

Ioana Bostan
She goes up the steps to the sound of the croaky whistle. The last coach. A kid is strumming an out-of-tune guitar, and the others are blathering fragments from Riders on the Storm. Maybe they will be able to make it to the other side, she said to herself. She passes them and stops at the end of the aisle. Here it's safe. A guy with a hooked nose smirks at her flirtatiously. Pissed off, she turns around and looks through her pockets. A crumpled cigarette. She looks at the watch. She'll get off at the second stop. With these blue eyes and ripped jeans no one will check her ticket. She flinches. Tickets, please.

(Translated by Ana Maria Mitruș / 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.