Fireworks, Firecrackers, Poppers

Adina Colțea
He first saw her on the tram. She was talking in her mind to the sparrows at every stop and laughing, and they followed the tram as it moved. Then he followed her and sat down beside her on a bench along the path. She held a leaf in her hand and giggled, as if that leaf was telling her something no one else would have dared to say. This girl is a ball of joy. When he offered her a dandelion and that ball of joy rolled into his eyes, he felt his heart leap out - thumping, bursting, spilling into colors over her smile like a celebration.

Iulia Stavre
I'm in 10th grade, and my parents went to the mountains. For the national holiday. Outside, it's freezing, a sharp wind cuts through the air, chilling your blood in your veins. In our friend group, we're debating where to go out. I check in with Zizi, my best friend. Come on, girl, we'll keep it low-key. We'll bring the drinks, order food on Glovo. At the end, I'll help you clean up. Forget the music - we'll play cards so the neighbors won't hear us. By dawn, I locked the door and sighed in relief. Except...the guys stopped by my dad's shed. I think they found the New Year's arsenal.

Ramona Ungureanu
Come on, get dressed nicely, they'll be here any minute! You look like savages. They're your aunts, for God's sake, you won't die from a couple of kisses. Where on earth is your sister? I look around - her slippers are left by the bed. She must have slipped into another movie again. Sometimes, she drifts so easily into her laptop. Always barefoot, usually stretched out on some meadow. She'll come back, no doubt. Outside, the carolers had started singing. My firecracker of an aunt was stepping out of a taxi. In the Russian movie, my sister had stretched out in a wheat field full of poppies, while the harvesters gathered the heavy stalks.


(Translated by Miruna-Camelia Baicu / 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.