My Cardboard Balcony

The Robbery by Belinda Roddie The robbery took place at twelve o'clock, when the sun blazed upon the backs of men who dressed in black jackets despite the shock of heat that lay upon their dark heads. When the two women approached the banker, their boots clicking on the wooden flew, he knew what was to happen, sensing how the hair stood on his hair before they even drew their pistols. Out came bags, and out came cash, dumped out of registers. The women fled with thousands of dollars stuffed in their sacks, and the men in black watched as their car sped down the dirt road. They would not forget soon: How ballsy of those girls, to steal at noon.

She told her father that she had stopped taking the pills. That they had made her more anxious than ever - more jittery, more fidgety, more obsessed with details. When he tried to force her back onto the prescription, she reacted the way any teenager in fear would - she ran. She ran with one backpack and a sandwich and left her cellphone at home, scaling the steps of a bus and counting how about seconds it took her to find an empty seat: Two.