My Cardboard Balcony

Radiant God by Belinda Roddie See, I am everything from infrared to ultraviolet I forge a covenant with the sky and drape its cloak about me like new wings

I haven't used my typewriter in years. Everything is done by hand. They tell me I should get one of them newfangled computers, but I ain't in the mood to learn new technology. I write until my hand cramps up, and then I record my thoughts on a cassette tape, which I play back and listen to multiple times until my fingers start seizing and I start to feel pins and needles in my palm. My novel remains unfinished. I remain unpublished.

R'lyeh by Belinda Roddie I'd praise Cthulhu if only his creator hadn't been a staunch white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer Maybe he waited dead dreaming until his bastard master felt the tentacles growing inside his small intestine After all it takes more than a yacht to the head to subdue a creature worthier of being a god than the racist who inked him

I didn’t mind my job, honestly. Sure, the work was occasionally tedious, and spending all that time in a cubicle did quite a deal of damage to my already out of shape back. But my coworkers were nice, and my boss had a good head on her shoulders. I worked 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, and felt a sense of normalcy. I hadn’t felt that in a while. Of course, that was before my brother called me from prison.

by Belinda Roddie "I love these shoes," she said, "but I hate the way they pinch my toes!" Sally demonstrated this to her wife, Nicole, by stripping one heel off her right foot, revealing one or two swelling blisters on her hallux. Nicole wrinkled her nose. "If they pinch your toes so badly," she quipped, "then why do you wear them?" "Because I like them. Duh." Now Nicole raised an eyebrow. "How can you like shoes that hurt you?" Sally's face scrunched up dramatically. "You don't get it!" she cried out. " Beauty is pain!" "All right, all right, Miss Femme Fatale," sighed Nicole, waving her off dismissively. "I gotta pick Wesley up at the station. I'll massage your feet later or something, okay?" This week's prompt was provided by Arden Roddie.