Fireworks, Firecrackers, Poppers

Elena Fermuș
Day 365. With mistletoe and energy, Toujours. Mistletoe from the forest, energy from within your being, because that's when the energy increases. You count the seconds: 10, 9, 8. Your eyes sparkle like two fireworks and you get overwhelmed by thousands of thoughts. I will do this and I will fix that. I will move mountains. You reach the start point and you begin counting the days again. 1, 2, 3. Routine. And it seems that you get tired. You even start forgetting. The dreams get lost. Perhaps among the summer days. Or maybe among rust leaves blown by the wind. And you keep counting the days. Inevitably you reach day 365 again. With mistletoe and energy.

Monica Ciurea
He worked on Easter, on Christmas, he had a shift now, as well, because he doesn't have a family, children or responsibilities like everyone else, anyway. At the turn of the year, only the ambulances were louder than the firecrackers and brighter than the fireworks. He was responsibly treating the irresponsibility of others: alcohol poisoning, gallbladder attacks, wounds, mutilations, burns. Then a nurse with a phone to her ear beckoned him: Your mother. Ah, yes, tell her Happy New Year from me, I'll call her later. Doctor... She's here, in the ER. A cold shiver ran down his spine. The noise, the light, they all stopped suddenly.

Gheorghiță Mircea
He didn't turn on the light. He fumbled trying to find the rubber tube connected to the FFP channel, waiting for the official awakening. The FFP (Fireworks, Firecrackers, Poppers) news agency, the new organization of the New State was keeping in contact with the people who had democratically chose it, this way. At 6 AM, the anthem was sung, now turned into the Morning Ode Dedicated to the Great Leader - he who removed the traitors and established the three powers of the New State: Kleptocracy, Plutocracy and Idiocracy. He heard a grunt and bark through the tube. The anthem was echoing, then soup flowed through the tube.


(Translated by Adina-Lorena Dulamă / 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.