My Cardboard Balcony

The Turkey Was Missing by Belinda Roddie The turkey was missing from the oven, and my mother was about to throw a fit looking for it, so I proposed that we round up the usual suspects. Well, surprisingly, my dog's breath did not smell of bird, so that typical ending was scratched off the list. My father was vegan, my aunt not a fan, and my sister too absorbed with her cellphone to snatch a whole turkey from a hot appliance. Not quite successful with catching the culprit, I knocked on the bathroom door to find my drunk cousin gnawing on the half-chewed carcass, gin on his breath. He'd never had much class.

After dinner, we nestled up together in my grandfather's armchair, our stomachs slightly swollen from the binge of turkey, mashed potatoes, and casserole. I could still smell marshmallow in your hair after your petulant brother had flung a mushy yam onto your head with his fork, but in the kitchen, I knew pie would be waiting, but only after we had gotten over the initial food coma.

Cole Slaw by Belinda Roddie Cole Slaw ate coleclaw as an act of poetic nuance, then realized that the cabbage had gone bad, so he stayed all day in bed with his sick knees pressed against his sick chest.

Someone did the unthinkable around half past midnight. The unthinkable, not to be thought thoroughly about at all, was named such in order to spare brainpower. The unthinkable, in one way or another, was meant to frighten skeptics, ready the guns of told-you-so-ers, and perpetuate a mythos across the entire town. No one knew who had committed the unthinkable that particular half past midnight. That person was unthinkable as well.

How My Girlfriend Broke Up With Me In My Dream by Belinda Roddie I told her that, without a doctor, she would swell up like a balloon.

The message that Arthur derived from the tone of his mother's voice was completely off, but he held steadfast to his belief of what she meant and refused to speak to her for two days. It wasn't until his aunt told him he was being ridiculous that he offered to take his mother out to coffee to apologize, only to become flippant when she sounded "slightly stern" about his driving.

Carnival by Belinda Roddie Six people at the carnival tried winning stuffed lions at the water pistol game, then wound up stabbing the vendor with plastic laser swords due to his accidentally grabbing five dollars off of them instead of four. They were escorted from the vicinity with screeching throats and shaking knees, only to sneak back in like ninjas, steal the worthless plushies, and hightail it, howling, into the light of the crescent moon.