My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie The only gift she'd ever received was a smiley-faced towel. And I don't mean that she only got one present her whole life, which just happened to be a smiley-faced towel. No, no. I mean every single present she had been given throughout her fourteen years of existence so far was, indeed, a towel with a smiley face on it. No one knew why. No one knew how. And no one exactly got why she didn't seem perturbed by it. In fact, she appeared to be perfectly okay with such an arrangement. She collected the damn things. Sure, they came in different colors - red, blue, green, purple - and sometimes she'd even categorize them by size or shade. In the end, each wrapped present provided to her by her mother or father or aunt or uncle or brother or sister simply added to the pile. All those yellow beaming mugs staring up at her. It was enough to give every common man the shivers. Until her fifteenth birthday, when I gave her a new watch. It lay limply in her h...

Here I am, alone again. Here I am on the southern shore. Here I am tuning a mandolin that keeps going sharp in the salty air. Here I am with frail fingers, wishing I could a boat that could take me all the way across the ocean to a brand new ocean. There is the boy building a castle. It will turn gold in the fading light. He will be king for only a moment before the foam washes power away.

Welp. I got through another week of work. I didn't get called for jury duty. My sister is visiting, which is awesome. My wedding shower is tomorrow. Apart from the usual political bullshit and personal anxiety, it's been a good week. Yeah, I'm not always so good at this whole introspection thing, am I? Then again, I think that's been obvious since I started this blog nearly five years ago... Anyway. Have a great night and a great weekend, everyone.

Something About Los Toros by Belinda Roddie My twin sister came back from Seville a full-fledged matador.

We walked two miles into the wilderness before setting up camp, pitching our tents and lighting a fire in a nearby pit that appeared to have been dug out by travelers before us. As I breathed in the smoke and ash from the smoldering, sparking wood, I watched as my friends took pictures of the sunset on their huge, cumbersome cameras, before they came back for the cans of meat and beans that I had opened for them.

My Sister's Back! by Belinda Roddie My sister's back! Yes, she is visiting this week, and I couldn't be happier. We're quickly getting back into the swing of things, like sister shenanigans. Her silliness is contagious, as always, and we've had fun and goofed off quite a bit this current night and the past couple days. We walk at night, and the streets are all lit up by our presence. Enthusiasm bursts from our pores. We love life, and we love to be a part of everything. Our whims and sporadic decisions rank above any concept of "propriety." Seems that my twin and I make an awesome team.

I didn't know why the man was standing on my doorstep at first. His black suit startled me, as well as his sunglasses. They were so dark that I couldn't see any part of his eyes. I felt a foreboding shiver run down my back. "Um...may I help you, sir?" The only part of the man that moved was his mouth. "I'm here to collect your daughter." "What?" "She is needed elsewhere."