Apex Magazine Issue 4

By Jason Sizemore (Editor)

Apex Magazine is an online digital zine of genre short fiction.

SHORT FICTION
A Poor Man’s Roses by Alethea Kontis
To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament by Peter M. Ball
Ghost Technology from the Sun by Paul Jessup

POETRY
After, Thoughts: A Pantoum by JC Hay

NONFICTION
An Interview with Brandon Massey by Maurice Broaddus

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Book Company
• Release date: Nov 22, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458058058

Book preview

Apex Magazine Issue 4

October 2009

Alethea Kontis Peter M. Ball Paul Jessup JC Hay

Apex Publications

A Poor Man’s Roses Copyright © 2009 by Alethea Kontis

To Dream of Stars: An Astronomer’s Lament Copyright © 2009 by Peter M. Ball

Ghost Technology from the Sun Copyright © 2009 by Paul Jessup (Originally published in PostScripts Magazine)

Interview with Brandon Massey Copyright © 2009 by Maurice Broaddus

After, Thoughts: A Pantoum Copyright © 2009 by JC Hay

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Publisher/Editor-in-Chief—Jason Sizemore

Senior Editor—Gill Ainsworth

Graphic Designer—Justin Stewart

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ISSN: 2157-1406

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Apex Publications

PO Box 24323

Lexington, KY 40524

Contents

A Poor Man’s Roses

Alethea Kontis

An Astronomer’s Lament

Peter M. Ball

Ghost Technology from the Sun

Paul Jessup

After, Thoughts: A Pantoum

J.C. Hay

Interview with Brandon Massey

Pimp My Airship Ad

A Poor Man’s Roses

Alethea Kontis

Alethea Kontis is the New York Times bestselling author of Sherrilyn Kenyon’s Dark-Hunter Companion, as well as theAlphaOops series of picture books. She has done multiple collaborations with artist Janet Lee including A is for Alice, The Umbrella of Fun, and the illustrated Twitter serial Diary of a Mad Scientist Garden Gnome. Alethea’s most recent work can be found in the Apex Publications anthologies Harlan County Horrors and Dark Faith.

At first, she sang to remember. It was a way to pass the long, dark time, a way to drown out the buzz in her head when the earth shook and the bunker rattled, a way to live outside the bars of her cage, to be a woman who smoked and drank, flirted and pined, flipped her pin curls and married a man for his car. Eventually, Patsy Cline became Kerri’s reason for living. In five years, she hadn’’t found a better one.

Good morning, said Stella. It was the only clue Kerri ever had to the time of day, or the notion that days passed at all. Stella opened the cage hatch and slid the food through. I have a surprise for you today. She smiled. You’ll like it.

Let’s see…what would she like? Kerri would have welcomed a hot poker in the eye, an asteroid hitting the earth, or the blast from that damned super volcano the world had been holding its collective breath about for the past decade. It would be ironic, Kerri mused, if all three suddenly happened at once. About as ironic as someone surviving cancer just to live out the rest of her days in a prison.

You’re using your head-voice again, said Stella.

Sorry. Kerri often forgot when she was speaking aloud, and when she wasn’’t. Stella seemed to be able to carry on the conversation regardless. Surprise? Beside her cardboard poultry and marbleized peas was a box. Kerri mentally dumped in that box all the bitterness she tried not to heap on Stella. The Bastard never had been able to make more than cereal and burnt toast, and his AI wasn’’t much better. Every time Kerri was tempted to advise Stella on how to make a palatable gravy, she asked herself why. Herself never had a decent answer.

Kerri lifted the box up to the laboratory light that slanted through the bars. Animal crackers, she read…aloud? Stella smiled, so she guessed she must have. Then again, Stella was understanding more and more these days, whether Kerri spoke or not.

Surprise. Once upon a time the gesture would have meant something. Now, Kerri only felt empathy for the two-dimensional zoo creatures imprisoned by the lines drawn on their own cages.

Aren’t they wonderful? Dr. Petrakis brought them back on his last trip.

Kerri couldn’’t stop herself bursting into laughter; nor did she want to. Laughter told her she was still alive, and each guffaw brought her this much closer to insanity. Oh, blessed insanity, why hast thou forsaken me?

As if The Bastard actually gave her a second thought. Doctor Petrakis indeed. In this backwater life at the end of the world, you were whoever you pretended to be. There were no background checks anymore, and no point. No one begrudged another man his delusions of grandeur.

Fine. The Bastard could be a doctor; Kerri would be Patsy Cline. She put her fingers to her lips and took a long drag on an