Category: Literary Story

Lori Schafer’s flash fiction, short stories, and essays have appeared in numerous print and online publications, and she is currently at work on her third novel. Her memoir

Old Orange Shirt contorts his corpulent body and reaches for his wallet. This time he withdraws a fifty and tosses it onto the bar. Brown Eyes, who’s been watching, springs into action. “What’s a girl have to do to get a gentleman to buy her a drink?”

On the patio the afternoon rain had begun to fall. You could hear the drops hitting the corrugated tin roof, a pitter patter at first like cat feet but then suddenly bigger, a crashing of sound

Flirtatious sport, at best. A mere distraction. But one exciting and flattering as all hell. So what if she was married? He was married too. They were both consenting adults; both knew where the other stood.

My thoughts are confused, the world is pitch-black, voices from another room are an incoherent chatter.

She was a girl then. She’d gone to Carlito’s Traveling Show with her mother, a woman who died young. Glossy red with white stars, the box rested on a carpenter’s table. Carlito climbed in.

Steve shoved his hands into his pockets and stood at the crossing inhaling faint ethanol, human sweat and Thai takeout. Emotions raced through his mind forming axon networks that blurted dejection