“Sip, sir?” the wino asked, holding a bottle of cheap wine up to the gentleman ready to jump off a bridge after a stock market collapse.

“I appreciate the thought, but I’m ill.”

“It’d be a tonic!”

“Just one couldn’t hurt,” the gentleman replied, sitting with his new best friend.

USAF veteran Tony Wayne Brown has won contests by Art Forum Magazine and Union Writers, second place in Writers’ Journal, and honorable mention in Writers’ Digest. His fiction has been published about fifty-five times, including by Huffington Post, Main Street Rag, Vestal Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Foliate Oak, Bartleby Snopes, 50-Word Stories, 100 Word Stories, Horrified Press, Liars’ League Hong Kong, Every Writers Resource, The Write Place At the Write Time, Infective Ink, Word Gumbo, and The Story Teller.