IR 1234 Train

Oana Brumă
It was also known as the hunger train. It would depart around noon from Satu Mare, it would slither like a serpent across the country, picking up carriages and eager children along the way, until, some 20 hours later, it would finally roll into Năvodari. No air conditioning - just wide-open windows letting the hot wind rush through. Ten students crammed into a compartment, drenched in sweat, their legs sticking to the scorching brown seats. We feasted on cheese puffs and Frutti Fresh, never feeling like we were missing anything. And at the end of that grueling journey, it was there, waiting for us - the sea.
 
 Iulia Biro
Imola refused to travel by car or plane. A year without a train ride is like a year without a holiday, she said. Vlad stayed with her, in love enough to see the world through her eyes. We'll take an InterRegio train, they decided. These run well. By the end of summer, they were still on the platform, still optimistic-the train would be there any moment now. But winter came and went, and it never arrived. Spring and a few rains made them sprout leaves, yet they still hadn't understood. By early July, when the train finally pulled into the station, their roots had already broken through the platform.

Nicolae Popescu
I know Fănică - he takes the train to Bucharest every day. With his bags full, he sells fruit at the market near the station. I heard on the radio that reading makes you smarter, he tells me. So I started reading. I even set myself a cultural goal: for every four kilos of apples I sell, I read eight pages. Right there, in the middle of the market. His fellow vendors stare at him like he's some kind of spectacle. I'm on the Russian classics now - Tolstoy. I look at Fănică and pat him on the shoulder. Tomorrow, I'll buy four kilos of apples - to help him finish War and Peace. At least the war part.

(Translated by Carmen Badea / 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.