My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie The well-dressed man stepped out of the ocean, fixed his tie, and walked, dripping, straight to the interview. He didn't stop by the available bathroom by the beach to rub himself down with paper towels. He didn't consider swinging by the nearby drugstore for a blowdryer. He simply strolled into the corporate building with the silver logo complete with red flame, full blazen, perched on its metal lip. "Hello," the man enunciated carefully, his voice somewhat garbled and warbling like he had been gargling saltwater. "I have an appointment at three PM with Mister Shaw?" The receptionist eyed him curiously and cautiously before gesturing to a clipboard. The man signed carefully, making sure not to leave wet blotches on the appointment sheet, and then slogged to the bench to sit and wait. He picked up a National Geographic magazine and flipped through it, settling on a twenty-page article regarding the future of marine life in the aft...

I have a date with an explorer who told me that when an explorer stops walking, the world stops turning. I'm planning on finding him on the top of the city hillside, where he will be recording his thoughts and dreams in a leather journal, and under the blanket of constellations, he'll tell me just not the history of each shoelace of stars, but the power behind each print that the shoes of the cosmos have left behind. And then we'll order pizza and recline on the couch at my place because that's nice, too.

All right, let's look at how the job search has been going so far, shall we? Within a week, I have applied to a multitude of jobs with little to no response, been offered a substitute paraeducator job mistakenly and then had it revoked because communication broke down and they hired someone else before they hired me, been prepping for a walk-in interview at a bookstore, and re-applied for AmeriCorps, even though I'm late in the game because I had no idea they had a job in Marin, and I would have to struggle with a smaller income. The only guarantee I have, right now, is an orientation date on Wednesday for a retail job. Yep. I may just be regressing work-wise to 2008, becoming a cashier. It's like I said last week: I'm not keen on leaving the education field, even if only temporarily. That's why I've been clawing for any kind of education job, even just a part-time after school gig, even if it pays me less money. Being able to both write and teach, while...

Writing Exercise #1 by Belinda Roddie Epistolary – 249 words Dear Peter, I don’t remember what happened the night before, or how you had offered me to drink. I don’t remember if we told any stories, or sang loudly to the songs on your iPod. I don’t even remember the guests you must’ve invited and introduced me to. But most importantly, I do not remember the woman that I saw when I stumbled off the bus this afternoon, my head screaming at me asking why, why did I have to get up from Peter’s oh-so-comfortable linoleum floor. Peter, who the fuck was that woman who smiled at me? And why did she tell that she had “such a hot time at your friend’s house the other night”? I mean, Peter, what the fuck did you convince me to do with this woman? Look, I’m a man who loves his Bacardi. I’ll admit that right now. But you know that no matter how shit-faced I could possibly get, it has taken and always will take an excessive amount of teasing or probing to get me to snuggle up with t...

On a scale of one to ten, the pain is up to twelve. I can't use a scale to define the fire burning up and down my right leg. I wish I could remember how and why it happened, but there's nothing but static in my brain right now, and no matter how much I can try to twist the knob in my lobe, I'm not picking up any stations. Just put me on as many painkillers as possible and send me on my way - I don't want to recall anything. I don't even want to recall my own name.

I Wrote A Tragedy by Belinda Roddie I wrote a tragedy about a man who killed his wife and then proceeded to marry his stepdaughter, who secretly wanted to run away with a duchess betrothed to a slimeball with lots of cash that had been hoisted from rogue pirates, who now were approaching the quaint, quiet town that served as the typical setting. I could have let the simple lovers join the pirate crew and sail off on their boat. I could have made the sleazy duke poison the wife murderer, and then he would keel over, very dead. That would have been a happier ending. But, no. Not today.

"He's rather easygoing, isn't he?" the professor asked about the dean as the latter leaned his shoulder against the wall, sipping from his glass of cider through one side of his mouth and smiling with the other. "Oh, yes," replied the registrar. "He's just come from another university. Known as 'Mister Chill' by the students. They miss him dearly, but their loss is our gain."