Priority

Iulia Biro
If he weren't so seedy after drinking, The Green Prince would do something for his country. First, he would find a wife, he could hear the king saying that his duty to the country and to the royal family was to produce heirs, not to let the country in chaos when they were gone. They say there are also other things that he must do, killing dragons, bringing the diamond cherries to the palace. Shit, man, he wants to say to his dad, let me sleep for a week first, we'll talk about the job description afterwards. Let him not throw up in the council hall, like last time.

Dan Banu
Since she had come along, treasures no longer fascinated him, the battles with the armies gathered on his trail no longer heated his blood, the sword no longer burned his palm. The fiercest pirate became a child. When the galleons got closer, the first mate gathered courage and enter the captain's room. He stepped between the maps scattered on the floor among the jugs with broken spouts, and found him curled up in a corner, his body oozing with unclosed wounds like mouths of eels. He was reading avidly, as he has been doing every day lately, 1001 Nights.

Bogdan Sebastian Burjan
Only 3 brick walls were left of that train station. The ticket office looked as if it was still open. She was sitting crouched in a corner. She was trembling with cold. Her lips were purple. The skin on her hands was cracking from cold. She could barely hold in her hands a small, old photograph. Passing by, an elegant man leaned in. Have you been waiting for a long time? He should arrive with the first train, said the old woman. I am waiting for him right here. He puts his thick coat over her shoulders. To warm up. He walked on through the long, rusted rails. Perhaps leaving isn't a priority. Perhaps staying should be.


(Translated by Diana Sitaru / 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 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.