My Cardboard Balcony

Have You Ever Met The Broomstick Man? by Belinda Roddie Have you ever met the broomstick man? I have. He sits by the bus stop every day and eats pickles straight out of the jar. He really is like a broomstick - skinny like a broomstick, matted hair like a broomstick. Even his skin could match a broomstick's wood. My mother was once friends with him, but he doesn't like to talk very much at all. He has difficulty stringing nouns and verbs together and tends only to speak in fragments. He once had a job as a watchmaker and he made my mother a beautiful golden pocket watch. So when he dies, we'll wind it and remember him.

The Statue of Liberty turns red in your line of vision, but no one seems to really pay attention to it. They don't watch at the prongs of her crown gather blue fire at their tips and burn brightly in an eerily patriotic glow. You watch as the children wave their tiny American flags and their shoes shake under the vibrations. Explosions on every coastline, ripping color into the peaceful horizon.