Tea

Gheorghiță Mircea
I wake up; I'm cold and I need to take a leak. Careful not to wake her, I go out. The light bulb is flickering, I miss and piss next to the toilet bowl. I look for a roll of toilet paper, but I can only find a wad of newspaper with Cyrilic letters called Pravda. In place of the Gilette razor, I find one with Sputnic blades. I find the kettle next to an empty vodka bottle. I look for the coffee. Can't find it. I wake her up. The coffee? What coffee, Mișa? Tea. She turns over and on her bare buttocks I see a tattoo, Natașa and Mișa Love. Pizdeț[1], my name is Mircea, I find myself swearing.

Vlad Pasencu
It was cold in the small room with its damp walls. Evgheni dragged his chair closer to the samovar. He poured the hot liquid into the delicate porcelain cup with trembling hands. His stomach growled, reminding him that that tea was his lunch. The fire was dying down. They had had a hard times since the Communists came to power. But former Prince Evgheni Golitsin was a survivor. He glanced with bitterness at the remaining furniture, got up from the Louis XIV chair, broke off one of the legs and threw it on the embers.
 
 Camil Popescu
Ana makes the best chamomile tea in the neighborhood. When I go over, her mom opens the door for me. Hello, Bobiță. Sărumână[1]. Come in, please. I'll fetch Ana. Ana appears. Would you like some chamomile tea? She asks. I would, I reply. She puts water in the kettle and places the kettle on the stove. How have you been, Bobiță? Fine, I say. The water starts to boil. Ana turns off the stove and puts the chamomile bags in the kettle. We wait a moment and look at each other. Do you have a cigarette? I ask her. Mooom, Ana shouts. Give us a pack of Kent. Smoke quickly, Ana's mom replies, so you won't be late for kindergarten.

(Translated by Alina-Alexandra Șovar / 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.