The silver lining to every soggy cloud that’s been hanging over me lately: I’m publishing a short story. It’s still nice, after all this time, to be recognized for these little works. It takes a lot to send them out against the reliable onslaught of rejection letters.

The story is called Last Man Waking and it is a very short story, told in an informal tone, as if it’s a story being related to you verbally. Because of this, it has had a hard time finding a home. A lot of editors have accused it of giving too cursory a telling of the story, but I think it’s perfect, and apparently the editor over at Roar and Thunder thinks so too. It’s an Australian publication, so once again it seems that I can get published anywhere but my home continent/country. (Seriously! I write for Miracle in India and my poetry’s only in print in England!)

The Aussies are cool though, and I’m honored. Plus, it’ll go up online for free. Of course, I’m getting paid dirt for this, but that’s the way I like it. Throw a little money my way to reaffirm my pride of craftsmanship, but just take my piece and publish it in the way that it reaches the most people and is easiest shared. As much as I want to make money on my writing, I know I’m never going to pay the rent with short stories, so I don’t see why I shouldn’t just get them out there for the world to enjoy.

It should be up by “Friday” but with the wobbly-dobbly time differences, I’m not exactly sure when exactly. I’ll let you know ASAP once it’s up. It’s pretty dark, but it’s a science-fiction that looks just slightly into the future in order to predict what it would be like for a family in England to endure a new epidemic of Encephalitis lethargica…otherwise known as the Sleepy Sickness of 1916. I first read about it in Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything and fell in love with the mysterious disease. It has never surfaced again, but what if…