Red Button

Bogdan Mihai Bati
I heard the phone. Put my book aside, left the armchair and reached to answer. It's my dad. He rarely calls. It must be something important. I wanted to press the green button, but it wasn't there. Only the red one was on the screen. I panicked. I need to talk to Dad. He never calls just for no reason. Where the hell is that button? Dad. I want to talk to Dad. I screamed like a madman into the silence of the night, waking up the whole house. Miruna held me in her arms and kissed me. Come on, calm down. The funeral is tomorrow. It was just a bad dream.

Ana Maria Dobre-Nir
For a year now, her body has been motionless. In the small room, the air is always the same, just like the days. A single thought repeats itself. A button, at the foot of the bed. She imagines reaching out and pressing it. Everything would stop, just like that. No questions, no procedures. A clean solution. Just a click, and silence. Fragments of the accident flash through her mind, like the sound of metal, a scream... she's not even sure if they're real. She wonders if she would feel fear or relief. But her hand won't move, and the button doesn't exist. Only the white ceiling.

Titela Durnea
The phone call unsettled her. Meet me at Croco. It's important. She threw on her jeans and a T-shirt, ignoring her messy hair. In the elevator, she managed to swipe on some make-up. She arrived quickly. Dora was waiting with coffee and an angelic smile. Spill it, girl. What's the emergency? I saw him, Alina. Finally. He's the one. What are you talking about? I got lost in his eyes. He got off at the second stop. By the time I snapped out of it, you know, to press the button, the tram was already gone. Come with me, I don't have the courage to approach him alone. Girl, where are you even going to find him? In the tram, my dear. He'd told the guy next to him: See you tomorrow.

(Translated by Constantin Grigorescu / University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, MTTLC, year II / 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 March 2025, the group has 13,700 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.