Heaven's Gate

Aurelian Țolescu
After a too risky operation, I've woken up face to face with Petre, who is explaining to me from the door that I cannot come in because I've been an intelligence officer, and I don't appear to be trustworthy. But I have defended my country, even at the cost of my own life, as I have sworn. Yes, but you eavesdrop, you organize diversions, who knows what will happen to us here. Down at the Devil's is your place. All of a sudden, the door opens and the winged one hollers: Boss, Vladimir called and said that he would arrive here soon. Shall I make ready the Eternity Villa from the Meadow?

Arthur Ianoși
E It is that time of the day when smoke comes out of my thorax. I sigh on the inside like a tired train, which skates on the rails in some tunnel backed up on both ends. I put on the black hoodie, I check to see if I have everything I need in my backpack, get out of the hotel and I get lost like a ghost among the tourists that are teeming the esplanade from the front of the Kotel. I take out a piece of paper from the wall and give it to the child next to me. Take this piece of paper to the Mount of Olives. I take a spray out of my backpack and draw a circle on the stone. I pass through the wall.

Fabiola Stoi
It was the morning of Epiphany's Eve and the frost bit fiercely then. I was coming from a party and, to shorten the way back home, I went straight over the Hill of the Metropolitan Church. Up there, behind the church, a woman shivering from the cold was sitting like a hatching hen on a sack. Do you have some gloves, dear? She yelled from behind. I took out the gloves, the subway station was not that far, and I handed them to her. She lowered to the ground with them in her hands, as in prayer, and said with an unexpected happiness: You will find them at Heaven's gate. Up till the subway station I cried to fill a river.


(Translated by Ana Maria Mitruș / 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.