Love, Your Artsy Girl

Could never use those coupons up before they expire. Forget where I put them. How am I able to keep track of all the things I could have saved? Must have emptied more than  a million trash cans  in my lifetime. Hauling off heaps of my heart in rusty shipping containers overseas, giving it away in suburbs. In megapixels of my youth--no one has given me proof of its gold, its creditworthiness. Old Sunday circulars' clippings crammed in crusty corners of my purse. Maybe there's a purpose for buying overpriced souvenirs. To come full-circle at your frugality. Free yet fraught with  old film reels.

This flash fiction by Cristina Querrer was originally published in The Milo Review. ****************** Mount Pinatubo jutted its colossal body above the jungle, vacantly looking down and snorting at the mortals in hedonistic Angeles City, Philippines. Passengers in a jeepney witnessed a bar girl running topless down the street, chasing after some overweight foreigner. “Hoy, pogi, halika dito!” she shouted. The Australian looked back at her smiling as he trotted along flattered by her pursuit. Still, even in the ‘80s, strings of them lined up and down prostitute alley, these exotic gems of South China Sea, as the men liked to call them. Some leaned in the door frames of their establishments in their stacked heels and hot pants, some smoking a cigarette, some not. A Filipina teenager—a bar girl—sat on a GI‘s lap at a table outside one of the cabarets. Silhouettes of naked women danced in front of windows; discos’ bright neon lights flashed above street vendors sel...