At Your Window, Late

Ana-Maria Butuza
I've been sitting in front of your window for a few hours already, like you've asked me to, waiting for your signal to go up, but you are moving to and fro, with a cigarette in one hand and the phone in the other and when you get close to the window I flinch and move my weight from one leg to the other, hoping that you've not forgotten about me, but you walk away, leaving me out of breath, desperate and tortured and when, finally, you appear and wink at me that yes, I can go up, there is no need, to hell with you, it's kinda late, I could not hold myself back anymore.

Elena Fermuș
She would tell me that life is expensive, that I should save up. A little here, a little there, and that is how I can live off my money. I had a bad habit of leaving the lights on everywhere, and she would walk behind me to turn them off. She would scold me, why let the lightbulbs burn for nothing, girl? Not even after her passing away I came to my senses, and in her little room I never turned off the light. To be able to see her light in the window and to lie to myself nicely that she was still there. She was weaving. Scold me, mother, in my dreams if you want, but it's the light that keeps me alive.

Iulia Biro
He was wondering around the neighbourhood and expect for the streetlamps with their dirty light, he hadn't noticed any other light. No sign of life. It was past 3 in the morning, but in this big city there were no roosters that would crow. Pain is scarcely bearable when it's only you that is hurting, when everyone else dreams their existence peacefully. A claw was tearing his bits now then he woke up, drenched in cold sweat, in the bed in which he dreamt of the darkness. A few windows across the street had light coming through, only the pain hadn't passed along with the dream.

(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.