My Cardboard Balcony

1996 by Belinda Roddie   A computer's face has two broken teeth where I drill right in with my whims. The root canals are raw and open, and I snap the toffee strands from the cyber-molars. All this junk gathered up in a sad, sad pile makes me think of a black screen with white text. A "cd/" command for a 16-bit graphic game where Mickey Mouse learns the alphabet and  a kid with a face hidden beneath a windbreaker and a baseball cap zaps a mad scientist with a remote control. Sure, finicky electronics from Doctor Who are fun, and Cylon Centurions from Battlestar Galactica are pretty intense, but the basic function of the mighty DOS makes me nostalgic for a simple writing template and a cleaner, fresher face without all the sugary coating and excess buttery flavor of "Would you like to become friends with your childhood enemy?"

As the station wagon bounced down the unsteady asphalt street, Lawrence kept looking out the window toward the string of Gregorian-style houses. It looked like they had disappeared from the States and rolled right into a Victorian English novel, or at least into Dublin, Ireland. He turned his head and found his older sister asleep beside him, her CD player still plugged into her skull.