I lit the J between my lips and sucked its smoke deep into my fifty-year-old lungs. I held my breath and let it coat me inside. I sucked in more air to expand them further; to expose more tissue to the smoke. The deep recesses expand and then extract what they can before I blow the cleansed smoke out my nose. I never let my weed simply leave my mouth. No sense letting good shit escape into the air. I didn’t know the chick...

A strange thing happened the other day. I'm not sure whether the time had anything to do with it because it was only four-twenty in the afternoon and the rush hour hadn't yet got under way. Anyway, as I unwrapped my Penguin bar I saw a man sitting on the pavement outside a record shop. I remember distinctly the neon 'open' sign in the window above him flashing erratically on and off in the fading light. As I approached I...

Supper was grilled chicken and rice, with green beans, one of El’s favorites. Her Mom noticed the subdued reaction when her plate was placed in front of her. “Is something wrong, honey?” asked Alice. Silence, at first. Eventually, El told the family that she saw a ghost in the house the night before. “Where?” asked Em. “In the bathroom,” said El. Em started laughing. “Were they pooping?” She laughed again, and John and Al...

  Black Birds Cold night air pinched at the darkness. Frost painted featherlike patterns on the windscreens of the parked cars along the street. Grass huddled together beneath their icing sugar coating. A neon light at the corner of the street failed to notify anyone of the great deals Joe’s Café had to offer, the street had been plunged into darkness. The power outages were getting worse, and the outlook reported was ble...

The glow of the neon sign lit her face as she walked into the bar with a Gibson Les Paul guitar strapped across her back and carrying an urn in her hands. She set the urn in an empty stool and sat next to it, hanging the guitar on the back of hers. “Two dirty martinis please!” she called out. The bartender mixed the drinks and placed them both in front of her. She slid one over to the urn and sipped her drink, wincing as...

Dirty Martini 420 Competition • No entry fee• All entries must be new, original work• One entry per person• Limit 420 words• Category must be Micro Fiction, Flash Fiction, Poetry or Songs• Tags must include the word 'whatever'• Submission must include the number 420 in some form (time, date, distance, weight, temperature, length, or whatever) AND one item from EACH of the following lists:1. Exakta 66 camera, Gibson Les Pa...

I pulled the last olive off the swizzle stick with my teeth and ate it before finishing off my drink. Looking up at the clock it, showed 4:20. It was in the AM, not the afternoon. It had been a long day. “I couldn't even begin to count the number of people at the wake,” I thought. Flipping on the TV, I found there wasn't much at this time in the morning, just talking heads, Infomercials, a rebroadcast of a Flyers vs Pengu...

“What is this place?” he thought to himself. He carried only his beloved Gibson Les Paul guitar as he kept stumbling forward. His watch read 4:20 but he didn’t know if it was A.M. or P.M. A booming voice echoed through the cavern. “Step forward boy!” A figure rose from the ground. He watched as the figure stood 10 feet tall. It was grotesque in appearance with horns of a ram and a long whip-like tail. There was a swinging...

Dear Dad, It’s Julie. This is the letter we always used to wonder about. It took much longer than expected. My timeline runs parallel to, but thirty years ahead of yours, and I’ve grown older here than you are there.  You’re approaching the point where I lost you. A time when everything fell into chaos here. You wouldn’t recognize my world, but I’m still your little girl. I miss you deeply, shaking as I compose this, tryi...

“This is like a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode!” he observed. “Four of us locked in a room, and none of us know how we got here!” “And none of us seem that concerned about it!” the photographer noted. “Mind if I get some photos of everyone with my Exakta 66?” He stood up and started looking for the best vantage point in the room. The short, portly conductor was already pacing around, baton in hand. Dressed in his black...

The first time I meet you in a guitar store, strumming a Gibson Les Paul guitar I know you are the man I should be scared to get closer. My eyes behind my digital camera focus on your face while you are listening to the sound of the guitar. A penguin tattoo on your left tattoed hand stops playing, and you lift your head up to look in my direction as if you know that I am looking from behind the lens. Your eyes smile while...

It's unfortunate when you try something new and it all goes to pot. Big Dave is only too familiar with such misfortune, his rundown bar barely covers the rent and its faulty neon sign seems rather appropriate. Although, I kinda like the way his 'Rock Bar' trade name flickers and dies periodically, because sooner or later it always lights up and shines again. Despite its obvious shortcomings, when out shopping or whatever...

The woman in the mirror spoke to her. This was before she covered all the mirrors in the house. This was back when she was like eleven, maybe twelve, before all the crazy shit happened. Back when they first moved into the house. The woman had been in her mirror for some time. Hiding. At first, Em didn’t even now she was there. She thought it was her own reflection. Em noticed the woman only when she smiled. The woman smil...

The rain lashed noisily against the windows and drummed upon the flat roof of the dormer. She pulled the blankets up over her head and tried to shut out the incessant din but it was no use. The howling wind whistled around the eaves reaching a thundering crescendo before dying away, only to return with equal ferocity moments later.   Outside she could hear the distant roar of the sea, waves crashing mercilessly against th...

As the drums and pipes played Tribal King we stood our ground.  We the fresh and young troops of our King stood and watched the foolish French below.  For today we have been told it shall end here, end today.  The shout goes up and down the line, "Form right."   Our old man paced to the front, proud of his lads.  Stopping here and there to tap a shoulder, a word of courage to his green boys.  For he knew way too many woul...