Short story "Waiting for Jakie" now available at Apex
Apex Magazine has published this month's edition, which not-so-incidentally includes my short story "Waiting for Jakie." Which is very exciting.

The issue also includes original short fiction by Jamie Todd Rubin and a reprint from Jeffrey D. Kooistra; poetry by Michael Ceraolo and Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith ); interviews with Paul Jessup and Ekaterina Sedia, and a forward by special guest editor Michael A. Burstein. Cool stuff.

Here's the opening of the story, if you'd like a taste...

I like the blue pills best. I have others, of course — the purple ones, and the green and yellow ones. The tiny white ones? Those are just for blood pressure, and all they really do, in my opinion, is give a living to the drug companies. Not that I have anything against drug companies, God forbid; after all, they not only allow me to face each day, but gave my son Benjamin a decent living for many years until the AIDS got him, poor boy.

Anyway, the blue pills are the ones I take when I’m feeling nervous or depressed, which is most of the time, actually. I tell the doctors this, and they try to put me on other medications, more long term, they call it, but a week goes by and I’m feeling like taking a steak knife to my wrists, so I throw away the new ones and go back to the ones that at least keep me operating on, as Samuel used to say, all six cylinders.

And sometimes, if I’ve taken just a little bit more than I’m supposed to — not much, only a few more milligrams, nothing, an extra pill or more, who would begrudge it? — then, if I squint my eyes a little and let the living room furniture blur a bit, then sometimes, if I’m lucky, I can see Jakie. Not very clear, I admit, and usually only a little, but it’s him. It’s him.