My Cardboard Balcony

Mushroom Hat Dear Papa wore a mushroom hat and a cinnamon coat with an orange cravat, and he walked with my mother down Portobello Road for a tea and scone all chocolate chip toned. Now the vendors all loved him 'cause he bought pocket watches and leather journals bound with merchant love and comfort, eating crepes by the dozen and leaving just a bit of change for the strangers to enjoy on their way back home. And whenever he came back from his Sunday trip, he would give me a treat from a little boy's stand where he sold tiny fruits you could eat in one bite and I adored them, picking them out one by one out of Papa's mushroom hat.

"I'm dying!" "You're not dying." I was cradling her in my arms, grasping at her wrist with feeble fingers. The two large puncture wounds from the now dead rattlesnake were already beginning to turn purple. "I'm going to die!" she wailed, the tears beginning to swell up the backs of her eyes. I clung to her and buried my face in her hair, waiting for help.