{"id":21455,"date":"2024-12-21T06:23:38","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T11:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/?p=21455"},"modified":"2024-12-22T06:56:03","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T11:56:03","slug":"the-ballad-of-patsy-swine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/flash-fiction\/the-ballad-of-patsy-swine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ballad of Patsy Swine"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"vfgef6M6oSaddM6pChR2\">\n<div class=\"gIgFccyVflVKEh5Hk0ZR\" tabindex=\"0\" role=\"figure\">\n<div class=\"CoYTWXXKdjSwW5ACD3Os\" data-notranslate=\"true\">\n<div class=\"page\" role=\"region\" data-page-number=\"1\" aria-label=\"Page 1\" data-loaded=\"true\">\n<div class=\"textLayer\">\n<p><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">I decided I loved her because the first time we fucked I was flung suddenly and viscerally <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">into a childhood memory of the county fair pig races. It\u2019s clearer now that we both loved <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">drinking, and only when we squinted, could we love each other too. We were brought <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">together by that unnamed phenomenon which binds two people for a time, to cohabit <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">and sign contracts and shatter plates and puncture drywall and most importantly to <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">reproduce, so as to keep the whole diseased machine moving. That was out of the <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">question in our case because she started the pill shortly after our courtship began. It <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">made her fat and she hated herself though she had never been more beautiful, but <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">instead of telling her at the end of a long night I would utter the one thing I knew would <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">pierce her center and make her small and I shrunk her down like that until she was <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">gone. I did think of repeating her sometimes. A small part of me believed we could <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">resolve all of this by having a little girl and naming her something old-timey like Edie. <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">We\u2019d feed her juice boxes and take her to go see the pigs. I could see her curly head <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">bobbing in the backseat. Each piglet gets a ribbon and a celebrity pun-name. Sometimes <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">they dole out little plastic snouts that you can strap around your head. Our family would <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">sit on those dirty bleachers and wait for the old man to yell. She and I lived next to a <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">sugar factory. So close in fact that when we opened up the windows the whole house <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">breathed in that chemical-sweet air. But it\u2019s rare I think of the house or any of the <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">damage we did to one another in it. Only the first night. We were at a dive where my <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">friend from Nashville was playing a song that was once a story that someone told on a <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">mountain before our grandparent\u2019s grandparents were ever born. We drank bourbon <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">sweet tea. She followed me back to my apartment. Dolly Porkton and Patsy Swine ran <\/span><span dir=\"ltr\" role=\"presentation\">wildly.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"endOfContent\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"HPKNlZjUDtqTBSW4xfV5\">\n<div class=\"MjHKSBkYc_ARQ4pbSx1j\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I decided I loved her because the first time we fucked I was flung suddenly and viscerally into a childhood memory of the county fair pig races.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21460,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-cortez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21455"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21455\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21461,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21455\/revisions\/21461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}