IR 1234 Train

Titela Durnea
They caught my attention as soon as they got on. The young girl seemed to be around 16. A bruise in the shape of a pear circled her eyes horribly. Her mother, I think, firmly occupied the seats in the front. She shoved the bags under the seat and pushed the girl to the window. From under her coat, a round belly peeked out. Is it a girl? I ask indiscreetly after a while, and offer her an apple. Here, it's juicy. The girl bites into it eagerly. Then I hear her mother: I'm getting off here. I'll calm your father down. She slipped a 100 lei banknote into her pocket. The girl stared out the window for a long time and then fell asleep with her hand resting on her belly.

Camil Popescu
    A summer afternoon. A country road. I arrive first at the barrier. I open all the windows and light a cigarette. A villager passes by the cars, with a goat following him. He reaches the barrier: Uncle Vasi, when does the train pass? No answer from the cabin. The villager ties the goat to the barrier and heads toward the little forest by the railroad. The train passes. The barrier rises, along with the goat. I don't remember if I heard the bleating first or the villager shouting, as he ran with his pants down: Uncle Vasi, untie Steluța.

Ligia Dumitrescu
Every day, she would appear at the information desk. Does IR 1234 arrive on time, please? she would ask, full of hope. At first, the clerk politely explained that IR 1234 does not stop there. After a while, they would tell her that the train was delayed, that she should go home, and they would notify her when it arrived. Who are you waiting for? a passenger asked her one day. My son, she replied. Look, and handed him a yellowed piece of paper, its edges torn and barely legible: Soldier IR 1234 is listed as missing in action.

(Translated by Laura-Monica Doroiman / 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.