The Smoking Man in the Street [Flash Fiction]

by Laramore Black:

“I think my lungs are about to collapse,” this old man jokes, while lighting a cigar. “I’ve always inhaled them – to me it seemed pointless not to.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“When life hands you something with a risk, you take it.”

The old man collapses; gripping his chest and spewing thick dark smoke from his mouth. The cigar falls from his lips to the pavement and rolls away. He begins waving his fingers at me to come near. I crouch onto my knees and hover my ear over his mouth. He grabs my shoulder with the strongest grip I’ve felt and whispers his final hoarse words:

“Or you will die a sad old man, talking to a stranger on the street.”

By now a crowd has gathered – I raise my head, looking all of them in their shocked eyes as I feel the life leave his grip. His eyes flutter before rolling back and his arms fall to his side.

I stand, still taking it all in – lost in thought, until rudely interrupted by one of the tourists of death. A disrespectful gentleman with a raging curiosity asks me what it was he had said.

“Nothing – nothing at all,” I mutter back, glancing toward the cigar still burning in the street. I notice its vanilla fragrance overtaking the atmosphere. I am possessed to walk over to it and pick it up. I glide it under my nose, sniffing its fragrance through my nostrils.

The people stare at me wide-eyed and confused.

I tuck it between my lips and inhale, and then begin walking away. Coughing and laughing hysterically at the idea the answer to life was as simple as that.

About the Author: Laramore Black is a dark fiction writer and poet of the American Midwest.  He is the editor-in-chief at Revolt Daily, contributor to the Imperial Youth Review and a staff member at Port Cities Review.  His recent publications include Out of the Gutter Online, Shotgun Honey, Literary Orphans, DarkMedia, The Shwibly, ThunderDome Magazine, Solarcide, and a few anthologies; like Long Distance Drunks, Nova Parade, and Salvation Black. You can stalk him on both Facebook and Twitter.

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