Here is Where I Hide Myself

Dana Popescu
Under the layer of easiness. On stiletto heels, with red lipstick and with my head up, I walk through my life as if I had already lived it. Every day I clean my mind: I shake off sadness, I banish melancholy, I stuff into locked chests memories that torment me. I exorcise the demons of unlived joys, I slam the door in the face of the ghosts of happy days, I throw away the heavy clothes of insecurity. I stubbornly rub off the entire layer of helplessness, I tear it off strip by strip. When the pain inside me tears me apart, I smile and touch up my makeup.

Paul Dârvariu
between your thighs. Rest assured: this text has no sexual connotations. Only energetic ones. The heat received is equal to my weight, multiplied by the temperature difference between us and the duration of the heat transfer. Let's calculate: I weigh 62 kilos, woe is me. Your thighs are hot, God, how hot they are. At least 37o C. I'm no more than 35o C. In the 30 minutes you hosted me, I consumed the equivalent of a tripe soup at The Hunchback Man. You are my guest, Miracle.
 
 Mona Zelenco
Only here am I flooded with familiar feelings of genuine affection and security. The temperature is ideal, I feel rocked by the waves, I am not afraid of the absence of light, I hear distortedly, but I only distinguish words of love addressed to me, I am eagerly awaited and protected from hatred, envy, violence and indifference. I look at evil with detachment, from a parallel dimension. Whenever I stumble in life, I return to the place where I have been sent many times, here, at home, in my mother's womb.

(Translated by Eliza Radu / 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 January 2025, the group has 13,600 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.