My Cardboard Balcony

I Picked You Up by Belinda Roddie I picked you up beside the highway and nursed the cuts on your legs after your truck broke down along the dry grasses and sand that churned up dusty winds. Quickly, you struck me as a quiet type, more inclined to twiddle with my radio than respond to any hint of conversation. You were beautiful. You were kind. You were fond of the desert flowers, pointing to them as we drove through arid towns, hot cities, the air conditioner abused. You held a stem of something in your hand. Nothing witty came from me when I dropped you off beside an old home, which you used to stay and hide.

The watchtower was crumbling beneath the guardian's feet, and he swayed and stumbled to keep upright while the others continued to sleep. And the soldiers were all shaking from their nightmares far away, where the grass was brown and dying and the sky forever gray. It was imminent, the falling, the collapse of the old nation - a new cry for reformation and a new civilization. And the guardian would finally tumble from his sad monolith, where the stone would turn to dust, dust to nothing, life to myth.

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.