30 Days of Fiction, Day #5: Totem Feast

(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.)

Alex lifted the turkey carcass out of the trash can and paused. It was one o'clock in the morning and cold. The house was still and silent. His testicles recoiled in the frigid air. He stuck his hand inside the dead animal. There was a little bit of stuffing left. It would do. Upstairs, Donna pretended not to hear her husband making love to yesterday's dinner not far from the garden shed.

Time: 12 minutes

Word count: 72

30 Days of Fiction, Day #4: The Pornographer's Dilemma

(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 pornographer's nightmare: He's back in grade school, and the school bully is a six-foot paper mache phallus hitting him over the head, and the porn star he shot yesterday is wearing a school girl's outfit and watching and laughing, and the teacher is Obama at the other end of the playground smoking a cigarette and looking the other way.

Time: 2 minutes

Word count: 60

30 Days of Fiction, Day #3: Fashion Bloggers Unite!

(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 fashion blogger posted a photo of herself, went in the bathroom, and cut herself. The fashion blogger opened a box from Chanel, went in the bathroom, and vomited. The fashion blogger had her photo taken on the street, went in the bathroom, and pulled out her hair. Outside, she was beautiful. Inside, she was a churning pit of fetid mud, a tangled mess of junkyard rabies and rotten yarn, the unfortunate offspring of vanity and insanity.

Time: 3 minutes

Word count: 77

30 Days of Fiction, Day #2: Couples' Road Trip

(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

30 Days of Fiction, Day #1: The War of the Elderly

(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.)

Over time, the elderly of Florida joined together and kicked all of the young people out of Florida. It was inevitable, but no one had seen it coming. The old people had seemed so incapable: so riddled with disease and constitutionally weak. Instead, they had been executing their plan all along. With the young people gone, they could revel in the pleasures of their broken down bodies under the sun, on the beaches, while the palm fronds waved at them in the breeze.

Time: 7 minutes

Word count: 83

Beware the Bot

Women ruin everything. Including sexbots.

— Susannah Breslin (@susannahbreslin) November 20, 2014

The Lemon

I wrote a piece for Men's Health about being married and having cancer and not having cancer. After I published this post, they asked me to write a longer version.

"Thankfully, my husband had been through worse: two deployments to Iraq with the United States Marine Corps. Cancer would be a cakewalk, the malignancy a microscopic terrorist cell that had set up shop in his spouse. It was just a matter of bombing the deadly sect into oblivion."

[Men's Health]

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.

Sideswiped by Sickness

Meghan Daum has an interesting piece in the New York Times: "I Nearly Died. So What?" Several years ago, she ended up in the hospital and, as the title states, nearly died. The piece focuses on what comes after she nearly died, particularly the expectation of what comes after. Generally, the narrative that a survivor is supposed to tell is fraught with lies and bullshit. I became a better person. I live in the present moment. I never take anything for granted. Of course, none of that is true; at best, you let yourself believe that it is. In theory, the sickness makes the bad thing that happened worth it, as if happiness and self-betterment are the only acceptable profits one may earn from struggling with the body's strong tendency to almost off itself. Daum's piece echoed my experiences post-breast cancer. In a few days, it will be three years since I was diagnosed. After a year and a half of treatment, I was cancer-free and not particularly a better person. And, oh, what a failure this is considered to be! I do not live in the present moment. I take things for granted daily. I am no more or less kind, patient, or generous. Something terrible happened, and then -- not because of my will or some miracle but due to science -- I got better. No one even really understands why, and no one can say for sure if the no-cancer status will stick. In the end, something will get me; there is no happy ending in life, only death. Still, online, women who have survived breast cancer prattle on endlessly about how improved they are, about how wonderful their lives are now, about how today is the only thing that matters. As if cancer is some thoughtful neighbor who brought by homemade cookies. It reminds me of the profiles I used to see before I got married when I perused online dating sites. Most of the men claimed to be "living life to the fullest." In their photos, they held up dead fish they'd caught. In their profiles, they referenced failed marriages and boring jobs. No one, it seemed, was living life to the fullest. How could they? It would probably kill them.

The Pooper

"At the other end of the bar, one of the three guys was talking to the girl with the Windex eyes. A few feet away, his two friends were snickering. The three were known for taking home the drunkest girl at the party and running a train on her. Afterwards, they'd leave her passed out on her bed, and on their way out, one of them would find the girl's purse and take a dump in it. He wondered how the girl would feel tomorrow when she woke up with a massive hangover and found her purse was full of shit. The guy slid his arm around the girl's shoulders, guiding her to the door, the other two guys trailing behind them. In another life, he would've stopped them. In this life, he ordered a double." -- work-in-progress

Baconfest

Baconfest was a total bust. Several hundred people walking around a parking lot. Also: a climbing wall and a bouncy castle. There was not even that much bacon. I ate a "pork belly salad," which is an oxymoron and not technically bacon. I eyeballed some bacon wrapped dates but didn't bite. There was a guy dressed up like a piece of bacon, a girl in a cow suit, and some large male in a hamburgers and fries shirt that was too tight. A waste of money, time, and calories. Oh, I almost forgot. My husband had this chocolate froyo with bacon on it which was not bad.

Swamp Buggy Queen

We had a good time at the swamp buggy races. We got lost several times on our way there, something that probably happens increasingly the closer you get to the everglades. Honestly, I'd gotten this event confused with an event in the other direction -- the redneck yacht club. I was expecting girls flashing their boobs and mayhem. This was more like NASCAR in miniature. The swamp buggies were strange, long contraptions, made to float and not built for glory. In between their dashes around the swamp, teen boys in small jeeps had their own races in which they sank so low in the water, I thought they might drown. (They didn't.) One swamp buggy racer flipped, but I don't believe he was hurt. There were many rebel flags and lots of BBQ. In the VIP tent, I had a chance to talk to this year's swamp buggy queen. She was very sweet. It's part of the annual tradition for the winning racer to pick up the swamp buggy queen and jump into the swamp with her at the end of the day. I asked if she was worried about that. She said, no, not really. Except, she added, someone said there was an alligator in the swamp, and she wasn't too sure about that.

I Get Email

"Im considering taking part in the pornography industry. This desire is not about making more money or 'getting a nut.'

Well, i cant nut actually, but i can 'get it up.'

I am a thirty-one-year-old paraplegic. I was shot three times roughly three years ago in an attempted murder. My goal is to inspire the disabled world that there world is not over and they can still achieve greatness if they are motivated enough to do so. I have reseached the subject, and there is not much out there in this category. I think it is a fascinating idea that could definitely bring not only success, but inspiration to people. Please, if you are intersted madam, please do not hesitate to contact me regaurding the aforementioned."

Immortal Art

"I want to be in a world where I don’t have to have a camera between my face and the subject in order to capture the subject in a way that’s real. I want to have a network of sensors that allow me to shift in time and place, anywhere, at any time. I want to say, 'I was walking down Fifth Avenue the other day and I saw this amazing old man walking down the street. I didn’t want to interrupt him, but he deserves to be immortalized for the beautiful moment that he allowed me to experience.' I want to be able to get on my phone and say, 'I was here at this time,' and go there and access the sensors that are there and find that old man walking down the street and take a picture of him three days later—and I want to be able to see it from different angles and change the filter on it. These things are going to be doable; it’s just a matter of time. That’s what I want." -- Clayton Cubitt

Swamp Buggy Races

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Swamp buggy races, Naples, FL / Photo credit: Susannah Breslin

Catcalls

Surely, the girl in the catcall video is getting harassed, but what they don't tell you is that when it is happening, you will develop a certain kind of relationship to it in your head, conflicted but a marriage of sorts, nevertheless, and through the years, as your ass drops, and your boobs sag, and your face cracks, you will find that it is harder and harder to maintain that relationship, good or bad, and the catcalls will come less, over the days, and the months, and the years, and some days, you will find, you will give up on them altogether, and some days, you will discover, you will work harder to get them so you can remember what it was like to be told, hey, baby, and, damn, you fine, and, girl, you got an ass on you, don't you, and you will not tell anyone, because they will tell you this is wrong, but you will miss it, you will pine for it, you will long for it, what is gone, and the only thing that greets you when you walk down the street is blank stares and silence.

Work in Progress

She came to town to be an actress.

That didn't work out.

She turned into a porn star.

That didn't pay the bills.

She prostituted herself.

That changed her.

[THE VICE MAN]