Sean E. Britten

I tend toward the verbose, and I’m not opposed generally to leaving a bit of fat on the meat when I write and edit my short stories, but I have also tried to come up with some ideas that are a bit leaner and meaner as well. So I thought I’d do a little bit of dabbling with drabbles. Drabbles, if you’re not aware, are stories consisting of exactly 100 words. Kind of like this introduction. They require the right idea and a careful eye when selecting words, as well as a bit of a harsh edit. Hopefully you’ll enjoy?

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A sailor went to sea, sea, sea, to see what he could see, see, see. It wasn’t clear exactly what he experienced crossing the Pacific but he came back a changed man both physically and mentally. He had aged what looked like years in only a matter of months. “There are things lurking beneath those waves,” he said. “Sleeping, forgotten, alien gods. Gods that had nothing to do with the creation of man. We are nothing but fleas cavorting on the back of beasts the likes of which you cannot imagine. One day they will wake, and we will die.”

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There once was a man from Nantucket, whose dick was so long he could suck it. However, years of a Protestant upbringing had left him with a deep aversion to anything perceived as homosexual. His penis was too large for a normal sexual relationship and even prostitutes would decline to take him on as a client. He attempted a career in pornography but his upbringing again made things difficult and he hated being treated like some kind of freak. He was left feeling lonely and dejected. He ended up killing himself. Fucked his brain to death right through the ear.

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Listening to the radio late at night, I came across a broadcast consisting of nothing but a list of random words. “Mailbox, Flower, Illumination, Basketball,” all in this droning, totally neutral female voice. I assumed I must have come across one of those ‘numbers stations’ that transmit seemingly random numbers as code for spies but using codewords instead. They broadcast for about twenty minutes every night around 1am and I kept tuning in trying to figure out the messages. I stopped listening though when in the middle of one broadcast the woman read out my full name and home address.

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If I could talk to my younger self, I would tell them that life is a journey and it’s alright not to have all the answers right away. Depression is not a moral failing. Gender is a performance, not a prison sentence. Flesh is weak and decaying but it can be replaced with metal. Miles of silicon and circuitry inside a tungsten shell. I’ve bathed in the light of alien suns. I’ve walked on the surface of dead and frozen worlds. I’ve seen those that defy us reduced to clouds of red dust glittering in the void. It gets better.