I'm a Cabbage

Nic Ularu
She was pressed against the stinking wooden wall. She was suffocating and sighed deeply; someone shouted at her in a hoarse voice, Shut up, dear, we're all a mess here. She fell silent, trying to remember how she got there; suddenly, salty water began to run down her head. Unexpectedly, a rescuing hand pulled her out of the cold water. What the hell is this cauliflower doing in the cabbage barrel, you drunk? The drunk wiped his nose on the sleeve of his puffy jacket. That was the last image she saw before being chopped and stuffed between pickled peppers and carrots.

Laura Stanciu
I don't understand women who travel by plane dressed drably. Why don't they wear elegant outfits? They hang their phones around their necks, put their documents in small bags, and walk around in loose pants and light jackets. Unmade up and unstilled, you'd think they were just cabbages. I wouldn't allow myself to be seen without lipstick, without heels of at least 5 cm, and without fixing my hair from a brush. This is what Marlene told herself as she stood proudly in line at economy class, headed for Paris. She was calm. She hadn't forgotten her passport; she had just put it in her checked baggage.

Cristina Daniela Dumitru-Pascal
The girl loved the empty lot. That was where she lived. Quietly, peacefully, it gave her a sense of well-being. So, what if it was a garbage dump? She would talk to it, and it had gifts to offer. The first book she read, the first pair of slightly worn shoes, even a little dress, a bit stained, after she told the story of the little match girl. She went to school. She could hardly wait for vacations to see her friend. Then, there were courses abroad. When she returned, she no longer recognized the field. It was beautiful, cleaned up, ploughed. She embraced it. It cried. They planted me with cabbage. I have nothing left to offer you.

(Translated by Claudia Garofina Greculeac / 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.