Following the success of the Mondays Are Murder series, Akashic introduces Thursdaze (because the weekend won’t come fast enough), modeled after our highly addictive Akashic Drug Chronicles Series—which has produced volumes on marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and speed. Stories in Thursdaze, as in the printed anthologies, encapsulate the writer’s fictional experience with marijuana, speed, heroin, cocaine, or any other drug, real or imagined, controlled or prescribed, illegal or soon-to-be legalized. Like Mondays Are Murder, stories in this series must adhere to a 750-word limit. There is an emphasis placed on stories that stylistically emulate the drug of choice, allowing readers to indulge risk-free. Thursdaze is your fiction fix to help you power through to the weekend.
Leaving you was like the way some doors have to be open a bit to lock. Meeting you was an accidental brush at the nape of the neck in a crowd: that thrum coupled with fear. To know each other, we need to take something in together; to trust, we must pass dangerous objects, sharp or burning, palm to cupped palm. We talk this way . . .
Are you ready? Here’s a bottle of water, just a sip will do. What’s that? Oh yes, my name of course, how rude of me. Well, that’s actually an interesting question, I have a few. There’s Edward, or Molly. Or Mandy. Me, I like Mandy—because I came and I gave without taking! Sorry, bad joke. Though somewhat true. It’s nice to finally meet you. Of course, you want to know more about me . . .
There’s lights on the ceiling, big white circles, each one brighter than beach sun, but you can’t blink or squint when they’re taking your picture . . .
You haven’t seen her in over a year, not since that Labor Day weekend you took her up to your family’s lake house and she got so pissed at you for shooting up right away. “Danny, I was serious,” she said, like you were supposed to know that. But how the hell could you tell she was serious this time when she’d never been serious before . . . ?
Mrs. O’Connor liked Burger King because it was cheap. When I arrived the next day, she was putting on makeup and drinking Coca-Cola from a large glass. “I’m almost ready,” she said. “That’s good,” I answered, “because I hate going into Mass late.” “I always love to go places late,” she said. “I hate to be on time . . .”
My friend, if I don’t put up things for you to “like” it’s not because I don’t love you, but because I remember what you and I used to be . . .
It was one of those days when the snow started and wouldn’t quit, so we bought beers and drank them and didn’t stop until long after dark and anyway, we were out. The apartment seemed all stained and yellow and stank of rancid burger grease. The snow just kept coming. We needed escape . . .
You snorted a rail so long I thought for sure it would knock you over, but you just threw your head back and asked me where I kept my champagne. With your pupils dilated, your jaw set hard, you strode across my apartment in your ridiculous red high heels and poured yourself a glass, bending down to lick up the overflowing liquid. You were still fun then, on day one. They all are . . .