Heaven's Gate

Cecilia Fofiu
Father is preaching such a long sermon after a night full of the overwhelming ordeal of prowling the households of the villagers in search of food and drinks. Nelu is dozing off while standing and Ilie, kneeling, is secretly praying that Pătru hasn't pulled down the shutters of the pub, for he can't see him inside the church. No one offered them any beer and the flames of hell are burning in their throats. And with the help of God the service comes to an end. Devout, they hide from their doddering wives, and they tactfully run to the Gate of Eden, where in less than an hour they are floating, chilled, like two seraphims.

Ana-Maria Butuza
On Sundays, Father Dusciac does not go out the church door until he has finished drinking the wine from the almsgivings. In the silence of the Holy Altar, he empties the first bottle recounting with the deacon, the second he chants from the psalm book, and if any bottle remains, he hides it under the cassock and the both of them, three sheets to the wind, empty it in the alley. They have their arms interlocked, leaning on each other's shoulders, and they keep taking one mouthful at a time all the way home. In the doorway, he crosses himself with a pious, praying look. No use. Where there's sin, there's confession. And a priest's wife with a rolling pin.

Florina Hegedüs
Here we are. Yes, it's grand, but its golden hue isn't summer-warm. In fact, it sends chills down my spine to look at it. It overwhelms me, but not in an alluring way. I push the knob. It's stuck. Hmm, they rarely have visitors here. Luckily life has taught me to anoint the knob with a drop of oil and tame it. I try to pull. But it has to be pushed. If there's danger inside, it's hard to get out. Leaning on it, I take one last look at the world. And I notice Him. He walks through all its beauty. And I'm angry. Angry that I've been fooled by fairy tales.


(Translated by Oana-Elena Dragnea / 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.