The Happiest Days of Your Life

by Peter Wild

They decided he was worthless, after all. He received notification in a buff-coloured envelope in the post. You are worthless, the notification read. Everything you think or have thought, everything you will do or have done, every attempt you make or have made, every hope, every wish, every dream, every intent, everything pertaining to you, in your entirety. Worthless. Perhaps surprisingly, the days, weeks, months and, eventually, years that followed the receipt of the notification turned out to be the very best of his life.

6S

Peter Wild, author of Public Displays of Affection, is the editor of a forthcoming series of books for Serpent's Tail, the first two of which - Perverted by Language: Fiction Inspired by The Fall and The Empty Page: Fiction Inspired by Sonic Youth - will be published in 2007. He is also editor of The Flash, which will be published by Social Disease in February 2007. His fiction has appeared in Word Riot, Pen Pusher, Scarecrow, Thieves Jargon, Rumble, The Beat and a bunch of other places. You can read other bits and pieces at peterwild.com.