With the Sack

Monica Aldea
The carts leave the mill, loaded to the brim. Mihu has been an apprentice since he was 14. He doesn't shy away from work. He looks frail but he lifts a sack with just two heaves. It doesn't feel heavy to him. A different weight is pressing on his soul. He barely manages to bring his grandmother three small bushels of cornmeal each month. The miller has grown rich, not just from grinding grain. Mihu knows plenty but he buries it deep inside. His grandmother told him: Be patient child, God chooses the poor. At dawn, policemen surround the place. Without looking back, Mihu hoists a sack onto his shoulder. It's light, just like freedom.

Carmen Tot
We'd been warned for days that we would be trapped in that village buried under the snow, but we didn't leave. A part of us wanted to see what would come next. When we had finished the last cookies, when the final carol had been sung beneath our windows, when even the pitchers of mulled wine felt like too much and remained untouched on the table, when even the snowmen were no longer visible underneath the snow, all was silent. And then, in the dead of night, a thud could be heard in every chimney. By morning, we dared to take a look. Santa had already left.

Mirela A. Nica
The good Lord had blessed him with plenty of talent but he didn't use an iota of it. He wouldn't hear it. He wasted away, day by day. Compose music? For whom and for what? The folks in that village didn't even listen to their own hearts, let alone someone else's. So he strayed off the path until he reached the forest. He built himself a hut there. At night, he howled with the wolves. During the day, he sung with the birds. He had learned from these animals that music wasn't about his heart, it was about theirs. Only then did he embrace his gift and make peace with the Almighty.


(Translated by Andrei-Bogdan Nicola / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 February 2025, the group has 13,650 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.