If there is a party at the end of the universe, Matt Wallace's The Next Fix will be the drug of choice. Learn more 
Short Fiction: Happy Thoughts
Sorscha had never known her father’s true motivation behind poisoning his children. Passion for Rasputin, Napoleon and Hitler? Paranoia-driven sense of preservation or completely sadistic experiment? Whatever his reasons, her immunity to arsenic always made for an interesting topic of conversation at dinner parties.
She had never told her father about the hallucinations. They were her own treasures, her happy thoughts, her best friends for twenty-five years of a life that seemed a magnet for the worst kinds of abuse. She took comfort in knowing that they would always be there for her – Patches, the bear with the bow tie and plastic balloon; Crash, the monkey with the red coat; and Wind, the unicorn.
Wind. He only came to her when things were at their worst. He had come to her the night Jeff had beaten her to within an inch of her life, right before his drunken ass had run off the road and met God and a telephone pole.
Sorscha knew he would come to her tonight.
Tears ran silent rivers down her cheeks. Minerva. That redheaded bitch had finally made her cry at work, something Sorscha had sworn she would never do again in her life. Minerva was a praise-greedy pig, a passive-aggressive witch, a back-stabbing weasel, a slow poison to which Sorscha knew there
was no immunity. Not even time.
Time only made it worse, as what little self-confidence she had wore away and her life sank deeper and deeper into the mire of living hell. The only reason Sorcha kept coming back was the picture behind her boss’s desk. If Minerva had somehow given birth to a beautiful, intelligent child like Daisy, Sorscha was convinced that there must be something redeemable inside her. Surely.
Sorscha felt a kinship with Daisy. She knew what kind of life the child had to look forward to. Minerva’s words would be Daisy’s arsenic — slow and painful and never leaving any visible marks. Daisy would
spend her whole life trying to make peace with this woman, trying to find love in a heart that knew no definition of the word. Once she lost that blessed innocence, Daisy would never know a life without pain.
Sorscha felt Wind’s hot breath on her shoulder as a tear dripped off her chin. She turned her head into the unicorn’s face and patted him, her hand slipping in the blood that slid slowly down his horn and soaked his mane.
It was a closed-casket funeral.
Sorscha moved through the black clouds of murmuring mourners until she found her, and Daisy flew into her arms without a word. Sorscha held the fragile child tightly to her. Daisy wasn’t crying –already having learned the strength to resist that weakness – but her tiny limbs trembled with the weight of the world. Sorscha had an idea of the confused emotions warring inside that little breast.
"Mama’s dead," Daisy said into her shoulder.
"It’s okay," Sorscha whispered into the child’s titian hair. "Think happy thoughts."
END
This Incredible Whirlwind of Beauty and Dynamite’s first in-print publication appeared in Apex Digest Issue #3. Since then she has gone on to publish a major picture book ( AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First), co-edit a critically-acclaimed all-star benefit anthology (Elemental: New Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy), and be hand-picked to pen the official Compendium for Sherrilyn Kenyon’s bestselling Dark-Hunter universe. Her short fiction has been published in Realms of Fantasy and Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show. Alethea works as a buyer for Ingram Book Company and an editor for Solaris Books in the UK. Check out Alethea’s own plans for global domination at her website: http://www.aletheakontis.com
Check out Beauty & Dynamite from Alethea Kontis from Apex Publications.Order your copy today!
-
