My Cardboard Balcony

These Stairs by Belinda Roddie These stairs don't lead to anywhere. The ceiling hits your head on cue. The pills you pop to alleviate the ache are temporary escapes from reality. Because when you were young, you were told that you could build an escalator to heaven if you figured out the mechanics. And now, in an abandoned house of nervous breakdowns, you feel the steps pushing you against a limit. A barrier. Another wall to send you stumbling backward into another hellhole of a hall.

He told me he was doing it because he wanted to instill courage in me. That he wanted me to become a survivor should total chaos break out in society. And he believed that would happen soon - far sooner than anyone else thought. However, I didn't understand how hitting me would make me tougher, or pressing hot metal against my bare arms and legs. He said I had to get used to the pain, and one day, I responded by breaking his arm with just one hand. He wasn't willing to let his own mantra apply to his own agony.

White Liver by Belinda Roddie He said he couldn't keep up with her. The train tracks were laid out, and he was running in his flip-flops against a grinning, hyper locomotive. Whistling all the way to the end. I passed him a cup of coffee and he drank it hard and fast. Kicking back caffeine like whiskey, in an effort to burp away the exhaustion. "She crashed into me," he announced, without shame, "like a tidal wave." Some people call this white liver, as in she had white liver. It's a weird image to me. The pure hue of an organ that has nothing to do with the hot comfort of a hotter bed. No wild ovaries, no aching loins or crazed, half-opened eyes. Just white liver. And as I sat at my kitchen table, watching him refill his coffee, I wondered if his stomach, or liver, could keep up with anything. While she, the smiling train, barreled onward, with a belly full of colorless fire.

They called it the decade of decadence. I called it the decade of overdues. The colors were brighter, the tastes of foods more natural, and everything urban becoming more natural in structure and hue. There were trees growing in unprecedented spots, and smog emissions had been cut drastically. We did not rely on a single president or Congress to decide major elements of our country. We became more independent. We became more democratic. That all should have happened years ago. And now the big shots were whining, as expected.

Plastic Hats by Belinda Roddie We'll wear the cheap zoot suits and plastic hats that we snagged from the old costume store, and we'll settle on the downtown corner and form a raucous band to rile up the business owners, from the cranky croissant peddler to the smartly dressed bartenders to the simple hair stylist who just adopted a bright-eyed and extra fluffy shepherd puppy. I'll pretend to play the bass while he squeals as loudly as he can into a saxophone, and you - you'll get to sing like Louis Armstrong in his happier days, when the world really was as wonderful as he made it out to be.

"How about cake?" suggested Erika. "Every problem can be solved with cake." "Not this one, I'm afraid," I sighed, sitting down on the park bench and watching the soccer game nearby. It was clearly older kids versus younger kids - yet the younger kids were winning. One girl who looked to be eight years old was performing a victory dance after allegedly scoring a goal. "Hey," Erika pried, "I remember when I had an argument with my boyfriend, I cooled him off with a devil chocolate slice. Never say never."

This was supposed to be my two thousandth post on this blog. Another awesome milestone and what not. And I was so ready to pound out a truly awesome OneWord prompt. Instead, OneWord is continuing its weird every-other-day pattern of prompts, and I'm left to type yet another "Sorry for no actual new fictional blurb" for all y'alls. Oh, wells.