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Centaur

May 5, 2016/in Flash Prose, Flash Prose, Summer-Fall 2016 / by Dawn S. Davies

[flash fiction]

I’m standing outside under a streetlamp, waiting. I’m not supposed to go in there. First, I am an alcoholic and I can’t go near a bar. I turn into a liar within two drinks, spreading gossip and promises, and hinting at extraordinary, eccentric hidden wealth. Two more and I am a beast, busting glass and wood, spurting blood, waking up later with rocks in my head, remembering nothing. Also, I’m a man of faith and I shouldn’t be in those places—places where ladies take off their clothes for money—and third, I’ve been banned. But Amber is inside there, so I stay. Check my watch. Count the time to when her shift ends.

The side door fills with light and she appears. She pulls her coat collar around her long neck, looks straight ahead, then walks down the alley. She wears sunglasses, a defensive act meant to insulate her from sloppy regulars, men who stuff her garter with crumpled ones and fives. I want to tell her it is dangerous after dark. That she needs to be aware of the dirty Lapiths who walk the night. She crosses Main and Whistler then passes the pool hall and the 24-hour Laundromat. I follow, like I do every night.

I’m not a perfect man. I’m veiny and thick and not pleasing to look at, plus I did a two-year bit for something I’d rather not talk about. I wasn’t violent. At least I wasn’t that violent. The guy had it coming. I was headed for worse until two weeks in de-seg, where I met my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. What I learned is that some of us are meant to straddle the world between good and evil and that God has made me a protector of the innocent. I have a purpose now. My purpose is her.

She steps into Bogie’s. She’ll order a burger and salad, steamed milk and Jello. I count to thirty, then go inside, slipping into the booth behind her. I order black coffee and cherry pie. Then I hide behind the newspaper and wait. When I look around it, she’s no longer there. She’s slipped away. My heart sinks.

She slides into my booth and says, “Why are you following me?” She is sharp-faced, suspicious. Her neck is thin and fine. I see tendons and ribs of trachea, a pulse fluttering under the skin. I say nothing.

“I see you every night, you know. You’re not that good at this.”

“I’m not trying to hide anything,” I say.

“Then why are you following me?

“Not following,” I say. “Guarding.” This is the truth.

“Why? You don’t know me.”

“It’s my job,” I say. “I protect the innocent. You’re an innocent.”

“I’m not,” she says. “You know what I do.” She cuts her eyes sideways.

“Everybody has a sin nature. Sometimes you can leave it behind, sometimes you have to live with it. Doesn’t mean you’re not precious.” I sip my coffee and look in her eyes for the first time. They are amber, like her name.

“I’m precious,” she says, the doubt catching in her throat.

“You’re precious in my sight,” I say. “Got a problem with that?”

“I don’t know,” she says, but she stays. Tucks her hair behind her ear. Takes a bite of my pie. Sits back.

Dawn DavisDawn S. Davies (www.dawnsdavies.com) has an MFA from Florida International University. She is the 2016 recipient of the Arts and Letters Susan Atefat Prize for Creative Nonfiction, and her essay collection, Mothers of Sparta, received the 2015 FIU UGS Provost Award for Best Creative Project. She was recently featured in the Ploughshares column, “The Best Short Story I Read in a Lit Mag This Week.”  She had a notable essay in the Best American Essays 2015, and a Pushcart Prize special mention for nonfiction in 2015. Her work can be found in The Missouri Review, Fourth Genre, River Styx, Brain, Child, Hippocampus, Cease, Cows, Saw Palm, Ninth Letter, Green Mountains Review, Chautauqua, and elsewhere.

https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png 0 0 Douglas Menagh https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png Douglas Menagh2016-05-05 20:33:402016-06-14 10:08:30Centaur

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Friday Lunch Blog

Friday Lunch! A serving of contemporary essays published the second Friday of every month.

Today’s course:

Behind the Eight Ball: How to Become Homeless in the Richest Country in the World

June 13, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Meeting My Child Self at the Trauma Play

May 9, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Products of Our Environment

March 14, 2025/in Blog / Michelle Hampton
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Midnight Snack

Take a bite out of these late night obsessions.

Tonight’s bites:

Dig Into Genre

May 23, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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The dreams in which I’m (not) dying

April 25, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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On The Map

March 28, 2025/in Midnight Snack / Michelle Hampton
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Amuse-Bouche

Little bites every third Friday to whet your appetite!

Today’s plate:

Tale of the resistant apple tree

June 6, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / paparouna
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https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TaharBekri.jpg 512 340 paparouna https://lunchticket.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/lunch-ticket-logo-white-text-only.png paparouna2025-06-06 11:00:072025-06-17 18:56:48Tale of the resistant apple tree

Talyshi Wall Graffiti and other poems

May 30, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
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we don’t spend our lives in the belly of the fish

May 16, 2025/in Amuse-Bouche / Michelle Hampton
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School Lunch

An occasional Wednesday series dishing up today’s best youth writers.

Today’s slice:

I’ve Stayed in the Front Yard

May 12, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
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A Communal Announcement

April 28, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Lizzy Young
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Seventeen

April 14, 2021/in School Lunch, School Lunch 2021 / Caroline Shannon Karasik
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Word From the Editor

The state of the world breaks my heart every day. Broken hearted, I stay online. I can’t log off. Because my career and schooling are all done remotely, I tend to struggle with boundaries regarding screen time, with knowing when to break away.

Like many of you, I have been spilling my guts online to the world because the guts of the world keep spilling. None of it is pretty. But it’s one of the things that, having searched for basically my entire life, I found that tempers the chaos that lives rent free inside my head.

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