The Ogres' Swamp

Dan Banu
He did love the Princess even though he had never told her. He watched her through the palace's gardens in the daytime, through the large lit windows in the evenings, and through his hot dreams at night. In the morning he'd start sobbing, because he knew that should he confess his love for her, and should she accept it, he'd eat her. The second ogre stopped one day near the first one. He squatted down and began to cry. He also loved the Princess secretly. When the seventh ogre sat under the balcony and started crying, the puddle was already huge.

Paul Dârvariu
First, take all the vaccinated ones. They're the most dangerous, as they've had their DNA modified. Call the Minister of Health to send you an update on their situation. Next would be the ones born via C-Section. These ones are broken from the very first moment of their lives, their divine thread has been broken. It's still the Minister of Health that should tell us how many of them we have. Thirdly, seek out those who drink juice out of plastic bottles. Their blood is infested with nanochips. You've got a list of their names? Very well. Now intersect the three groups. How many are there? 12 million? Do you believe they'd all fit in Brăila's Swamp?

Camil Popescu
We didn't have enough money for a fancier swamp, so our family found its home near a spiralled road, and, as we went out to play, we had to watch out for the cars that broke through the road barriers and landed right on top of our house. That's how cousin Michelin died, crushed under the wheels of a tour bus, and that was the first time we've ever seen what a man looks like. It wasn't for long though, because the Lacostes, terribly annoyed by their screams, pulled them to the bottom of the lake. All that was left of the driver was his head, with which we played football for a while.

(Translated by Diana Gabriela 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.