"A Walk in the Desert" (c) Mike Stone October 8, 2014   Tuvi Ornat put the old concert ticket he'd been using as a bookmark between the two pages he had been reading and laid the dog-eared paperback gently on the table beside his chair. He stood up and stretched his arms. "I'm going for a walk," Tuvi called upstairs but there was no response. He scribbled a short note and slid a small corner of it beneath her tea mug on t...

It was cold, so cold, as the sun began to rise in the east, casting the first rays of warmth across the rolling hills. The mist was lying in the valleys and as I rode slowly along the twisting, rutted road weird shapes seemed to appear suddenly then disappear just as quickly, as the thin mist twisted the beams of light into contorted shadows. In the far distance I could see the dark green canopy of the forest rising above...

Sun-dried mud on youthful faces. Waiting for the shrill sound of whistles. Rolling thunder, foot by foot. Sending earth tossed to heaven. Drips of crimson foam splash mates, along the trench lines. Orders barked with the shrill whistles. "Over the top boys!" Being met with rat a tat from the bloody Hun guns. O what a grand sight as the Black Watch moved. Once more the youth of Britain fed, the Fields of Flanders. We the p...

Dad was at work. Mom was at the grocery store. Her sister Em was at a friend’s house. El sat on her bed, playing with her kitten, Shadow. El had a feather on a string, and tossed it out like a fishing line for Shadow to chase. Something sounded from outside the room. Shadow jumped off the bed at once, his attention no longer on the feather. He bolted out of the room and took a sharp turn into the hallway.  El followed him...

Four twenty, Sunday afternoon Baking heat, it’s late in June Abandoned in sad clouds of dust Left by departing Greyhound bus   Besieging desolation follows me This ghost town place of memories I’d broke off young, just seventeen For things I saw in magazines   Now here I am, back on Nowhere Boulevard   In beaten boots and ragged jeans, Empty pockets and black Ramones tee A once pretty girl comes up to me Her battered heel...

A penguin walks into a local little dive bar. The neon sign in the window didn't just flash “open” like most. She blinked as it flashed "Dirty Martini served here.” It was 4:20pm when she climbed up on the empty barstool and placed her most prized possession, a battered guitar case that held a Gibson Les Paul guitar, on the stool beside her. She had inherited the guitar from an unknown source. It came in the mail with a n...

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...

  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...

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...

There is no Interstate called Four Twenty,No one can tell me how to go there, now.No entry ramps, no exits one might see,But, still, I dream I'll get there, anyhow. The neon sign still glows so bright, my friend,The penguins manning toll gates ask two bits,Then lifting up the cross bar by its endThey welcome in the artists and misfits. At every mileage marker on the way,Twin speakers echo out some brilliant blues.As Alber...

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...