Señor Sol came softly through my window telling me I could find any trick in the book with the help of the Green Lantern and Superman. Confusion compelled me to act mellow; I asked Señor Sol to calm down, but he screamed like an angry whale, “No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue. I could not foresee this thing happening to you.”

Perplexed, I slipped into my Huarache sandals, finished brushing my teeth with tequila toothpaste and checked my motion detector for motion while standing still. “Shadows fall, children play and baby when the sun goes down they go away, ” I said.

“But I’m the sun.”

“So you are.”

“The children can’t play.”

“Huh?”

Señor Sol devoured a dab of my tequila toothpaste; he ruminated the lime-worm. “If I stay in here, darkness will continue to dance out there,” he said glaring at the front door.

“What are you trying to say? Slow down, you’re moving way too fast.”

“Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends… Mmm… I get high with a little help from my friends,” Señor Sol said; he shined on my desk. “Use it, you’ll see… you’ll see.”

Cryptic messages constipate me. Trying my best to be a proper host, I offered him a plum; he wanted a tangelo. Things got worse when I confused an application of ultra-strength Bengay for Preparation H. I screamed like Joe Cocker high on graham crackers. Dancing the couka racha in 7/8 time, I exploded from my front door into the parking lot perceiving what I thought to be zombies mulling about all mugwhump-like. All sense of time seemed nonsensical. Confucius would’ve been confused. I waited.

Brother Bob came up to me smelling of coffee and gin. “Have you seen the little piggies crawling in the dirt?” he said.

“No I haven’t,” I said stopping my non-mentholated movement.

“Well, for all those little piggies, life is getting worse.”

Brother Bob’s a big dude when dressed in white, but naked in the darkness he looked small. I smiled and turned towards my car parked underneath a eucalyptus tree bearing eggplants. The startled nesting starlings tried to tell me something, but their purple Portuguese sounded more like aluminum Algerian—all crumply and sharp. I lifted my hands like St. Francis in a bronze repose; more nude neighbors shuffled on by me. They said hello; we never speak, just nod, salute or tweet. Outside in that parking lot my voice sounded weird. I tried to re-speak in a coherent cadence. Then I heard the click. Smackwater Jack was pointing his shotgun at Black Johnny, screaming: “140 or less!”

Black Johnny pushed his barrel-chest into the Remington’s muzzle. He shook his head.  “I’ve been to: Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, LaPaloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocapillo, Barranquilla and Padilla,” he said.

“Chuck, tell him I’m looking for a confrontation… in 140 or less.”

“Chill,” I told Smackwater Jack. “There’s a lot to learn for wasting time.”

Kelly Joe snuck up behind me and entered the conversation. He looked deep in thought; his red baseball cap was neon grey. “I want to go there when I die,” he said.

“Where?” I said.

“Everywhere, man,” Black Johnny said, cracking a smile. “I’ve been everywhere.” He pointed past the dumpster to Todd with the big head grilling fajitas dipped in sweet lemon-chocolate; the air smelled like vanilla extract.

Smackwater Jack lowered the shotgun to asphalt level. “It seems like Black Johnny’s appropriate in his word count,” he said drooling Tabasco juice. “Characters… 140 characters.”

“Or less,” Sultry Salma said from the shadows showing her perky silly putty tits.

Closing my eyes remembering my promise to stay visually faithful to my internet wife, I started counting as she sauntered closer. “There's harbors to be built, lad, an rigs to tow an tilt that sit upon the ocean bed like pylons in the sea,” Sultry Salma whispered.

“Huh?” Black Johnny and me said in tandem.

“And it's hard to say who you are these days, but you run on anyway… Don't you baby?” Sultry Salma laughed; her legs became Slinkys stretching and reforming—I heard them do so.

Todd with the big head whistled signaling that his fajitas dipped in sweet lemon-chocolate were ready. His toe jam football punted pleasing Sultry Salma who asked before leaving, “Did he say ‘one and one and one is three?' Oh never mind, he got to be good-looking 'cause he's so hard to see.”

The mugwumps en masse waived their cell phones: orange, red, purple, white and blue colored the dark. Crazy Janie came running tossing me her Ouija Board. Before I could say anything, she reversed her steps, did three cartwheels along with her vestal virgin cousins and gave me the Ouija’s planchette. “You’ll need this.”

“Why?”

The startled starlings flew on to my shoulder. “Make no mistake for your very own sake, here’s a little word for now: take off your shoes and let your thoughts be kind,” they said in poor Mandarin orange—I understood them. I slipped out of my Huaraches as I sat down in asphalt and gravel. The asphalt brought a welcome coldness to my non-mentholated bottom.

Phantom-like, the planchette jumped from my hand onto the Ouija board. Odd is odd, and that was odd. I watched it slide to and from letters in breakneck time, my thoughts envisioning a supercharged Zamboni driven by paranormal paranoids. In the darkness, I again closed my eyes as the letters came together to form words, syllable, contractions, conjunctions and sound—subwoofered. “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves. Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: all mimsy were the borogoves and the mome raths outgrabe.”

“What?”

“Twitter isn’t tweeting.”

“Huh?”

“Facebook can’t see.”

“One, two! One, two! And through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head, He went galumphing back.”

The Ouija’s message was a simple one once understood. I got to my feet, grabbed my Huaraches and two-stepped minuet-like back into my house. Señor Sol lay passed out on my couch. I ignored his snoring illumination; my MacBook was already powered up. Quickly I became a hunter on safari through the internet searching for signs of my prey. Nothing. I then followed a fox into a fire. Again… nothing. The Ouija’s jabberwocky revelation became truth: Twitter was indeed down—Facebook… well, I didn’t give a shit.

Panic set in. I needed to tweet said panic before paranoia became paranoid, but I couldn’t. “Peoria… Peoria,” I said as I tried to remember how to speed dial my internet wife on my iPhone. Luckily, she texted me: for every dime and nickel is money better spent… better spent on groceries… covering the bills instead of little luxuries—unnecessary frills.

I don’t text, so I emailed her back, huh? WTF? Waiting for her to reply, I wondered how the hell I was going to be remain mundane without Twitter—tweeting? Then, Señor Sol burped a simultaneous fart. That would’ve made a fine tweet. But no one would ever know, I mean, I could’ve told someone via conversation, but…. nah… it would get lost in the personalization of conversation. So I told myself, “fuck it.”  I went back outside and got Crazy Janie’s Ouija board. Smackwater Jack walked over with Big Jim the chief telling me; “You can't talk to a man when he don't want to understand.”