Heaven's Gate

Carmen-Ecaterina Ciobâcă
is open for the ones like you, dear Anca. The woman redeems herself through childbirth. That's what the priest told her at confession, and every year, the body was not hers, she had to share it as you would share the bread taken out of the oven. A child was at her breast, one was holding himself by her skirts, another one was growing in her womb. Get out Ion, you still want more children, don't you? she would scream with her nails digging in the bedding when giving birth. Lately he did not look for her at night anymore. The lump in her right breast would tell her that the body was again hers. She would not tell anyone about it.

Andra Toropoc
In her apartment Beyonce sings loudly on repeat, all the single ladies. In this way the neighbor from the third floor announces her mood. Yet, until recently you could hear GnR with knocking on the door on which it was clearly written Adam and Eve, meaning she and her husband until just yesterday. Meanwhile there has been a war in that place, the broken plates were singing, the lettering on the door has been replaced by a bitten apple and from beneath it church smells are coming every day. The neighbors, who found out that she has been incensing the place after that bastard and his snake left, are waiting patiently for a new song.

Marian Benone Mihai
Until recently I was standing at heaven's gate and doing customs. I was doing customs for everyone who passed through this heaven's hole, on this piece of land. I lived in the Garden of Virgin Mary, what more could I ask for? Now, once with the entry into Schengen, I ended up living on a salary, as every other Romanian, and on what I've saved up, as every other Romanian MP after his mandate has come to an end. Such a life, such a living, long live the 1^st of May? I'm thinking of moving, but where on earth would be better, better for me? Wouldn't the guys at hell's gate need a customs officer by any chance?


(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.