Jazz

Caterina Tudorache
Oi, what's wrong? The woman turned her back. Oi. Do I have to keep asking? Maybe you want another beating. Cause we were doing fine until you said that if I hit you one more time, you'll put tix[1] into my borscht. Oi, what if it's your birthday. I forgot. Why throwing a fit? You just keep quiet. What would you have wanted? Cake and present? But where's my food. Maybe you wanted champagne and those hors d'oeuvres that rich people have. You want music. No way you wanted that refined type from which you don't understand a thing. Without beginning and end. Enough with the indolence. Here is a gift. Tomorrow, I'll let you clean up the stable too.
Andra Toropoc
The double bass was her speciality, and she was using her fingers while keeping me captive between her thighs. I was adjusting my rhythm with her unpredictable movements, her nails piercing my buttocks, she was pulling me into her, whispering come on, jazz with me. The keyboard we picked up was covering our moans; I knew it was recording those sounds, and this innovative idea was driving me completely crazy. Next time, you will be my clarinet, she told me at the end. We will improvise with the modulation of your breath on the saxophone; people want real swing and we will give it to them.

Adriana Patroi Miu
The arrows stained by old age were poisoning his body day by day. He wanted to raise the milk-filled spoon to his mouth, but his hand was shaking. The liquid spilled all over his woollen vest, where everything ended up: the soup, the compote, the milk. He hadn't eaten anything for six days and helplessness bared its fangs for the last bite of life. He was counting his time in minutes and hours. In the metal of the utensil, the wrinkles were depicting a battle trench. Yesterday, he had conquered the audience on stage. He bowed his head and began to lick his plate, just like a dog would.

(Translated by Ioana Bobeanu / 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 December 2024, the group has 13,540 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.