My Cardboard Balcony

by Belinda Roddie Nothing would ruin my perfect evening. Nothing, that is, except her. I could plot out the scene in my head, as I nestled myself in the corner of the room with my girlfriend's porcelain head placed between my shoulder and my glass of Merlot. The blueprint spreading out on the cerebral table, lines of strategy being scribbled above wrinkles of gray matter. It would all be so deliciously dramatic. She would waltz into the lit up apartment, sweeping aside a strand of decorative lights and the cheap streamers set up for Paul's birthday. She'd be wearing one of the many cocktail dresses lined up in her closet - black, most likely - with full, pink lips pursed and swollen like balloons struggling to escape from their fleshy prisons. And her hair? Tied back, of course, with a few lonely wisps of her locks embroidering her bony cheeks. The chatter would die down. The laughter would dissipate. The music blaring from the iPod speakers would continue, never int

Nothing was sacred, nothing was new. That was the message the preacher was giving. The spot on the pew where I normally sat was empty as can be. Instead, I stood in the back, waiting to escape from his hostile homily. He was propagating like mad, and I couldn't hear God at all. And across the way was a hospital where a dozen people were suddenly suffering nervous tics from some fake divine intervention.