Filtering by Tag: MARRIAGE
That Guy
#gunequality
Buy THE TUMOR! "This is one of the weirdest, smartest, most disturbing things you will read this year."
Pank You Very Much
"A new piece of fiction by me in the latest issue of Pank Magazine."
30 Days of Fiction, Day #25: The Blackest List
via Groveland Park
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
Marrying the producer was a terrible mistake, the screenwriter decided, wiping the baby's ass. The baby kicked and peed, fussing and rashy. The screenwriter could hear the producer in the kitchen, her strident voice screaming at someone about something. She was a harpy of the highest order, the gnat in his brain. She seemed to have a keen sense of understanding when his brain wanted to form a thought. She wanted to interrupt it. Her heels clicked toward him down the hallway.
Time: 5 minutes
Word count: 82 words
30 Days of Fiction, Day #23: I Can See Forever From Here
via Inhabitat
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
She wanted a house, so he found four leftover toilet paper tubes and an old shoebox. He taped the tubes to the top of the box. He went on a walk, collecting small sticks and large leaves. Back at home, he weaved them into walls. For the roof, he removed the shirt from his back, cut out a piece of it, and sewed the canopy over the tubes and the walls. He skinned a baby rabbit and used it as a throw for the matchbox bed. When she got home, he invited her inside their tiny life together.
Time: 5 minutes
Word count: 98 words
30 Days of Fiction, Day #20: Unburdened
via textscape
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
The couple felt burdened. Together, they decided to unburdened themselves. The first thing they did was to sell the house. It had been causing their spines to bend from the weight. They took up residence in a park. Next, they began to divest themselves of their limbs, which seemed unwieldy and sometimes ached. Finally, they rolled around together as torsos and shed their clothes, feeling the grass underneath their belly buttons and holding hands with their eyes.
Time: 2 minutes
Word count: 77
30 Days of Fiction, Day #15: Bending Over Backwards
Image credit: Susannah Breslin
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
"I'm coming," she said, even though she wasn't. With her hands on her pelvis and her torso bent backwards, she could see the moon that was full yesterday breaking through the clouds. "I see a dolphin," he said, speaking from somewhere behind her. Without standing up, she turned herself around in the sand so she was facing the ocean. It was dark out. Upside down, she couldn't see anything that looked like a dolphin. "I don't know what you're talking about," she said. Next to her, the husband bent himself backwards, and they watched the waves crash across the sky.
Time: 15 minutes
Word count: 100
30 Days of Fiction, Day #2: Couples' Road Trip
Couple in sporty Ford, California, 1931 / Photo credit: Dick Whittington Collection
(Inspired by a 30-day yoga challenge at my yoga studio, I'm writing 30 flash fictions in 30 days. One a day. 100 words or less. Time limit: 15 minutes. You can read all of them here.)
The husband and the wife took a road trip. Being a wife, the wife decided, was like sitting in the passenger's seat, and being a husband, she decided, was like sitting in the driver's seat. The husband refused to use a map, and before long, they were lost. They meandered along a windy road in a forest, the wife nagging the husband the entire time. At one point, the husband made a fist like he was going to punch the wife but didn't. They ended up at a roadside restaurant, eating ribs and acting like teenagers on a first date.
Time: 6 minutes
Word count: 100
Three Years
Three years ago, this guy married me. We met on an online dating site. We got married nine days later. Thanks to the only guy crazy enough to marry me and stay married to me. You saved me.
The Beach
Beach, Naples, FL / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
The last time we were at the beach, we didn't swim. The intention was to swim, but a storm or a tropical disturbance of some sort the night previous had churned the water into a filthy mess. The sand was covered in broken seashells, and there was an occasional palm frond that had been thrown up onto the beach. The weather was pleasant, but the heat had dissipated, and most of the people on the beach were wearing light jackets and shoes. There were no manatees or dolphins to be spotted. On the way back, we looped through the wooded preserve, where we followed animal tracks of unknown origin, examined blooming plants with explanatory signs, and were hidden from the rest of the world.
Bride
Bride, Naples, FL / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin
Must Be Love
Rhapsody
"But Netzer’s piece is nicely based on the premise that we are crooked timber. We are, to varying degrees, foolish, weak, and often just plain inexplicable — and always will be. As Kant put it: 'Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.'" -- David Brooks in the NYT on Lydia Netzer's "15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years"